A Child of Summer ☀️🥭👒

Seasonal Quartet #2

The spring’s full bloom made way for summer afternoons,

April merged with May, and May took the form of June.

I’ve long considered May to be my favourite month. One might think it is because I was born in it, and while that is true (hehe), the deeper reason is that May marked the onset of summer break and visions of a childhood spent well. Nani’s special Sharbat, sharing kulfis with Nana, dancing barefoot in the occasional thunderstorms that rose from the simmering desert heat, ghost stories with cousins before being scolded off to sleep, watching Takeshi’s Castle and my favourite cartoons on repeat, reading storybooks including Amar Chitra Katha and Panchatantra, and picking up random topics to educate my dolls through encyclopaedias and dictionaries — that was summer for me.

“You still crave lemonade, but the taste doesn’t satisfy you as much as it used to. You still crave summer, but sometimes you mean summer, five years ago.”

- Alida Nugent

This year was not the same though — no break when you’re a working professional. The month was marked by geopolitical tensions at the border, devastating news from around the globe that one cannot (and must not) tune out of, and a personal health scare.

Even so, grace wove itself through torrid days — a birthday celebrated among my loved ones, being invited by my alma mater as a judge in their annual cultural and literary festival, mindfully consuming great content (movies, novels, and music), and becoming better at noticing the every day miracles of life.

In the midst of all that, like the flowers I find on my walks and tuck away in books, I collected five poems to share with you (and a few wishes towards the end), with an aim to bring back to life some remnants of a long lost summer.

1. Sonnet 18 by William Shakespeare

   Shall I compare thee to a summer's day?

   Thou art more lovely and more temperate:

   Rough winds do shake the darling buds of May,

   And summer's lease hath all too short a date;

   Sometime too hot the eye of heaven shines,

   And often is his gold complexion dimm'd;

   And every fair from fair sometime declines,

   By chance or nature's changing course untrimm'd;

   But thy eternal summer shall not fade,

   Nor lose possession of that fair thou ow'st;

   Nor shall death brag thou wander'st in his shade,

   When in eternal lines to time thou grow'st:

   So long as men can breathe or eyes can see,

   So long lives this, and this gives life to thee.

   

   A Midsummer Night's Dream, Henry Towneley Green, 1895

2. Midsummer by William Bronk

   A green world, a scene of green, deep
   with light blues, the greens made deep
   by those blues. One thinks how
   in certain pictures, envied landscapes are seen
   (through a window, maybe) far behind the serene
   sitter’s face, the serene pose, as though
   in some impossible mirror, face to back,
   human serenity gazed at a green world
   which gazed at this face.
   And see now,
   here is that place, those greens
   are here, deep with those blues. The air
   we breathe is freshly sweet, and warm, as though
   with berries. We are here. We are here.
   Set this down too, as much
   as if an atrocity had happened and been seen.
   The earth is beautiful beyond all change.

   manorma.music

   

   A post shared by @manorma.music

3. Six Recognitions of the Lord by Mary Oliver

   Every summer the lilies rise
   and open their white hands until they almost
   cover the black waters of the pond. And I give
   thanks but it does not seem like adequate thanks,
   it doesn't seem
   festive enough or constant enough, nor does the
   name of the Lord or the words of thanksgiving come
   into it often enough. Everywhere I go I am
   treated like royalty, which I am not. I thirst and
   am given water. My eyes thirst and I am given
   the white lilies on the black water. My heart
   sings but the apparatus of singing doesn't convey
   half what it feels and means. In spring there's hope,
   in fall the exquisite, necessary diminishing, in
   winter I am as sleepy as any beast in its
   leafy cave, but in summer there is
   everywhere the luminous sprawl of gifts,
   the hospitality of the Lord and my
   inadequate answers as I row my beautiful, temporary body
   through this water-lily world.

   

   A summer afternoon in Udaipur

4. Poem 5, Gitanjali by Rabindranath Tagore

   I ask for a moment’s indulgence to sit by thy side. The works that I have in hand I will finish afterwards.

   Away from the sight of thy face my heart knows no rest nor respite, and my work becomes an endless toil in a shoreless sea of toil.

   To-day the summer has come at my window with its sighs and murmurs; and the bees are plying their minstrelsy at the court of the flowering grove.

   Now it is time to sit quiet, face to face with thee, and to sing dedication of life in this silent and overflowing leisure.

   

   Sunflowers, Vincent Van Gogh, 1888

5. The Joy of Summer by Manorma Pandey

   [Here’s me cheekily inserting a poem I wrote back in school, and which got published in BBC Knowledge Magazine in 2016. An amateur attempt, but a joyous one, nevertheless.]

   

Finally, coming to the gentle reminders for the season:

1. Stay hydrated and don’t forget to cherish the lychees, watermelons, muskmelons, and other seasonal fruits that have spent hours in the blazing sun.

   

2. Nothing beats an Indian mango; and without the scorching heat of the subcontinent, those mangoes would never have attained their sweetest ripeness.

   “He visits my town once a year.
   He fills my mouth with kisses and nectar.

   I spend all my money on him.
   Who, girl, your man? No, a mango.”

   - In the Bazaar of Love by Amir Khusrau (13th century AD)

3. Notice how the trees dance when you glance at them; catch the way the sun beams at you from amidst their leaves.

   

   Amaltas tree — a sunlit whisper of Delhi’s summer

4. Look out for the birds, cows, dogs, and cats on the streets; place bird-feeders for their delicate beaks to find refreshment. 𓅪

   

   Peacock on my balcony

5. Absorb life like a sponge, sweat out your worries, and let whatever held you back melt away like an ice-cream.

Now then, since it is May, may we always be together <3

Sending you my best,

Manorma