Notes – Jaya Modi

Rain
By Jaya Modi

It’s raining again.

Heavy downpour lifting the smell of wet earth that
I love so much.
For a minute I close my eyes, and I am home, in India.

I open them to a familiar rain,
the awaited arrival of the monsoons.

Rope-like streams run down the mango trees,
The water sweetening its unripe fruit.

I’ll enjoy the fruit come season,
And taste the monsoon at the core of the seed
it enfleshed.

Leaves aquiver, covered in drops that seem to slide
off in amusement,
I see a squirrel scamper and hide its forage to safety.

I reached my hand out to cup a little rain,
But the temptress’s dance has calmed.

Her heady concert lasted just a few minutes,
But my, what a few minutes they were.

I blink again to find myself back in London,
Standing in the tiny balcony of my one bedroom flat.

Looking at my plants refreshed,
I miss my mother when I see my potted chilli plant.

I reminisce the times we spent talking,
Eating onion fritters and drinking chai.

The rainfall drowning our laughs,
With the music it made as it fell continuously
on the glass roof covering our verandah.

I look lovingly at [the] my pots and wonder,
Could the rain bleed colour from my beloved plants?

I stand there imagining, the rushing greens, yellows
and tempered reds,
And then I hear thunder. And I remember my father.

His voice rumbling and heavy,
It surrounds me with an inexplicable comfort.

Isn’t it wonderful? It asks me,
You, me and mumma, and our shared minutes of rain?