Up But Down- Part 4

Up but Down…part-4 It is a month. Since we went to that hill Not so high or big to boast about. But still something for us to elevate Eliminate or despoil as we please. I have no quarrel whatever with it, Its name, its need or the somber logic Of its existence. Only sympathy. None of which it needs for its own sake. Apart from the not-so-old power stations And undulating woods and plantations It has streams too to woo its rare guest But mine is the job to relive in full Its timeless past and its complex present, A past that seems vanished for good, but Thrusting an enigmatic hand at our hearts, Time past is a thrust into the living A sudden punch that leaves us but shell- shocked Treading a thorny trail, climbing down steps We cautiously step down boulders until We stand amidst huge and rotund rocks whose Polished round shapes tell of millennia Of floods, of flow, of hard and soft movements And we stand in an apology of A stream, tepid and knee deep, where we went Hoping to dip our hot bodies in the Hilly chill. Dismayed we walk back sweating Exhausting ourselves to no avail and Thinking of how we should brag about it All back home, vacuously and insincerely. Rain clouds were just gathering over there But plains saw torrential rains last fortnight People sadly tell, “Not much in the hills”