On nights when the darkness is so black
I close my eyes and remember the way sunlight fell on
cobbled streets in an alley in the city; mixing with the smells of
fresh coffee roast during a time neither morning or evening
mixing with the smells of margherita, mint, basil, parmegiana,
there, where light
glinted off grey and brown and sparkled,
I sat with my father by the curb,
watched the light play and remembered the city;
that day of rest which felt like a cradling, like my mother’s lap.

On nights when the darkness is so black
I close my eyes and remember the way I opened my eyes
one evening, coming out of a metal shack on top of a mountain
somewhere in the city, and looked up at the sky, as if for the first
time; stars of all sizes all shapes taking up the space, writing in
code making messages, words from the heavens, the stars
even now, twinkling behind my closed eyes
once open, and remember the city where
I learnt to believe in messages from the universe
again.

On nights when the darkness is so black
I close my eyes and remember the colour green,
the city where lay rows and rows of
tea leaves upon tea leaves, of rolling fields, rolling heady
scent, ripe and virginal, ready for gentle tasting.
A boulder in the middle
where the heat stung and settled and lay like the fine
gossamer veil of a bride, the green of the city,
cloying and humid and wet and the smell of
unplucked tea, the smell of a childhood long
gone.

Arathi Devandran is curating personal experiences, snapshots of the world and the stories people are willing to share through prose and poetry
(www.miffalicious.com). @miffalicious