North is where the mountains belong
They are introvert gardeners, lost in thought
of spring and progeny 
They keep to themselves 
in sorrow’s  long days, oblong and faint, 
like keeping an entire night 
in an old container
 
We head nowhere and we do not rise 
up to our levels 
while the rain and ginger lily petals smell 
like a new born God every week 
in Spinoza’s hills ,
as if, life is 
only seven days old always 
 
Like Spinoza’s pointing fingers, 
northern hills keep on waiting 
when the shadows 
of pantomime houses cover up 
our smallness
                        

This hot afternoon resembles an empty space
in the middle of a benign sentence,
the way you thank 
someone less familiar
 
We do not have anything against 
a summer, extra ripe,
because it is when we discuss temperature 
and daily life  
and we are lost in each other like sweaty cotton socks
in old shoes
to define                                
familiarity, general lack of trust  and weather 
 
Long back, we assembled to thank each other, 
read from the same pictorial book 
of thunder, flowers and the stars, 
considered the width of property , softness of  our curses,
chose a warm place to settle 
in the middle of nice flowers , preferably geranium , 
and select a homesick partner, a white wooden fence,
an active government
They are what they are: some crossed, some postponed, 
some painted and ticked 
like an allopath’s  scrawled check list 
 
Seasons are readymade poultices, scented, on our 
wounds 
shaped like hammers, stripes , sickles,  stars
and on our eyes, tired
They get prepared every year to give us 
some relief
as if, they are a factory owner’s  way of saying : 
yes, Mister, you still count  
even after all these