NEPENTHE

Petrichor Part Two

They call you petrichor

O, ambrosial scent of rain!

Your rich fragrance evokes in me

A kaleidoscope of rain drenched memories.

Unremembered thoughts, sights, smells and tastes.

There's me, all of nine

Floating little paper boats

Made with old notes of algebra

In tea coloured puddles.

Watching them glide away

With a little ache in my heart,

I learned that letting go is hard.

And then I remember

The annual ceremony

Of Buying New Umbrellas

With my father

My sister got the blue umbrella

And I got the pink

An injustice that still rankles.

Shivering and trembling

With my drenched hair and

Face adorned with little diamonds of rain

And my mother chastising me,

'why were you playing in the rain?'

I loved walking in the rain

With no umbrella hiding me from the heavens

As I danced and laughed and ran

The rain caressing my face.

I remember sleepless nights

Both dreams and reality haunted by

Lightning dancing past the windows

And the feral, savage bellow of thunder.

I remember when I was 13

Walking to school

Sharing an umbrella, in the petal-soft rain

Huddling underneath it with my friends

And once, huddling underneath it with my first love.

(The monsoons lasted longer than that first love,

Perhaps it's those blurry memories

Of broken, inchoate love

That makes me adore the rain so much)

I remember fevers and flu

My mother's chicken soup and herbal tea

A cold cloth over my forehead

And cough syrup sleep.

And now here I am

Aged with experience and love and pain

I miss those rainy days of innocence

I'll never get them back.

But if it weren't for your hypnotism

O petrichor..

I would never remember those days

The days that truly mattered.

Those days where everything was good

And anything was possible.

What's your favourite rain drenched memory?

Please do vote if you like my poems!