Periwinkle some days, lilac on others,
mostly smog-dulled grey.

Is it really written in the ice cream skies?

I sip coffee, watching the sky rest.
My grandmother hums an old folk song,
seated on a bench, a vision in white.

Young widows know no other colour.

Her ivory saree gathers the ochre glow.
A basket of loose jasmine idles beside her
like diamonds waiting to be set.

She threads them one by one
fingers looping with practiced patience,
rapt in a world of her own
while the evening rearranges itself.

The garden turns foxglove pink.
Plants slowly fold into themselves,

insects settle into a hushed buzz,
a dahlia offers her final blessing.‍

Avva holds her jasmine strand,
inspecting it with quivering hands.
I wonder what the skies wrote for her,
when they stole colour from her sarees
to unfurl across her sky.

The cosmos deepens to indigo in my cup.

Image by Peter Heymans.