Silhouettes In Asphalt & Clay

Sun spills over clay rooftops,

dust curling into alleys scented with mangoes, wet earth, forgotten spices.

Children scale banyans, barefoot,

laughing as if gravity were a rumor.

Old men chew afternoons like dry leaves,

arguing over clouds, ambition, and who really matters

while the universe observes, unconcerned.

Women fold spice-stained cloths, stacking them like invisible monuments,

counting each crease as if defiance were measurable.

The river hums, tossing leaves and petals,

stones skipping across water in tiny rebellions

that matter to no one, yet everything.

A woman sits on the porch,

hands arranging bowls of lentils with meticulous obsession,

apologizing to ghosts or pigeons; impossible to tell.

The town forgets her face,

she forgets whether she shapes the world

or merely holds it upright,

while the cosmos smirks quietly,

because the joke was never meant for us to get.

Miles away, the city waits,

its concrete towers stabbing the sky

where mango trees once whispered.

Steel glints under a ruthless sun,

neon slicing through exhaust haze.

Children weave scooters through traffic,

paper planes slicing reflections in glass,

horns punctuating missteps like cruel commentary on human focus.

Women perch on fire escapes, adjusting scarves, balancing bags,

while commuters stride past puddles of oil and rain,

briefcases swinging like metronomes to a rhythm the city pretends to understand.

The river narrowed, browning, defiant, 

slides between concrete walls, spitting plastic and bottles,

yet a stray cat leaps anyway,

mocking the city’s illusion of control.

Beneath rooftops, dust, mango trees, alleys, glass towers,

everything persists stubbornly, like rumors refusing to die.

Kites snag wires;

crows carve arcs across gray sky or neon reflections.

All life’s absurdities: triumphs, failures, petty mischiefs, 

exist in a single, unremarkable breath,

and we call some of it meaningful only to fool ourselves.

Time moves relentless and uncaring.

Towns pulse slowly,

cities thrust impatiently forward.

Windows rattle with wind and gossip;

doors open to arguments, fleeting victories, minor defeats,

the quiet persistence of absurdity.

Children grow into adults who forget mangoes, traffic jams, school bells,

but remember exactly how it felt

to climb, to fall, to scrape a knee,

and get back up,

because memory unlike most humans is stubbornly honest.

Afternoon stretches, lazy in the town,

taut and electric in the city.

Evening creeps in like a patient thief,

painting shadows across streets, glass, alleys,

tracing life’s contours that will never be measured by monuments or fame.

It is measured in subtleties:

a cat pausing mid-leap,

a window catching sunlight,

the echo of children bouncing off walls,

as if daring the city to contain them,

and the irony that humans

so clever, so frantic, 

cannot perceive the poetry of their own absurdities.

I walk both worlds:

absurdity, chaos, persistence, 

and understand, immortality lives everywhere.

Not in monuments, not in heroes, not in grand deeds,

but in gestures that persist anyway:

stones skipped across a river,

paper planes slicing neon air,

a woman adjusting bowls, balancing bags,

children running, falling, running again.

Life mocks us, teaches us, leaves us gasping,

and continues regardless of our comprehension.

Memory carries it all

cold, stubborn, unrepentant, 

a god waiting in alleys, rooftops, traffic lanes, mango trees, and concrete streets,

in every fleeting gesture

that refuses to vanish completely,

reminding us that significance is whatever we choose to perceive,

and human effort is mostly absurd theater.

Night arrives, sharp and inevitable.

The town exhales; the city hums.

Windows close. Doors latch.

The river whispers to itself.

Cats, visible in town, invisible in city

continue their debates.

I walk through both worlds one last time,

dust on my shoes, the smell of rain, fried snacks, asphalt, mangoes,

the stubborn echo of every moment I have observed,

and I realize, 

this is immortality.

All that persists.

All I can do is laugh softly,

because to mourn too loudly

would be to forget,

and memory:

town gods, urban gods,

will not forgive that.

The universe doesn’t care. 

It watches, patient and indifferent, while we stumble.