A vivid flash of pink check, and there she was

The dignified grandmother of Tarnakka

Adjusting her nine yards, as she nodded 

Amiably to another acquaintance

But what was she doing, so far from home

Visiting in my dream? They do, you know

without warning, when I haven’t had 

A single thought about them in weeks, months

In improbable combinations too

That you wouldn’t find in life

As though the boundaries of the real world

Dissolve in dreams

So you could find two friends

who don’t know each other, in one scenario

Despite the distance of continents

Perhaps a common creativity unites them in my thoughts

and I long for them to meet, as they might someday

As much as I long to meet the dear ones

I shall never see again

Daddy, three days short of the first year of his passing

[don’t lets call it an anniversary]

Arrived in his dark blue suit, and the ‘Senor Gonzalves’

moustache of Delhi days and sat at my table enjoying chole

I don’t think I’ve ever had such tripti as that

In any actual cooking I’ve done

Or Chiati, all beautiful bones of her

stretched out in her favorite breezy corridor

laughing then, interested in everybody and everything

not tired-bitter-unhappy, outliving her youngest

that she became at 96

Dreams let me see them, halcyoned thus

frozen in a moment of happiness, rare and fleeting

Just enough to infuse me with their peace

and a blessing on the go    

…

Lina Krishnan is an abstract artist, poet and photographer in Pondicherry. She has a chapbook of nature verse, Small Places, Open Spaces, with Australian poet Valli Poole.