Biting the Dust

A poem, after a long while.

It was the flavor of earth
Mixed in wind, rain and some mirth
That in faint breaths I first ate
Even before vanilla or chocolate

That haunting taste
Would Gush in through doors
Glide in through open windows
Sneak in through wire mesh
Permeate even wall
At the hint of a drizzle
Or loud gusty rainfall

My deepest breaths I would then take
With eyes closed, and lungs wide awake
Fill in my chest, it's every cell,
That evading, eluding smell

Appetized now and wanting more
I would step out the door
And go on a smelling spree
Using up, at once, as if,
All the breaths in my life's tree

Wishing,
It was a thing I could taste
Make of it, a juicy paste
Roll it on my tongue
More alive than my lung

Cloudless sky, Summer dry
Sweat and sigh, Life's cry.
Whence came that?
Wet mud in a whiff!
Faint as a memory,
From another life...
Was it delusion,...?
I went out to sniff.

Oh it was a neighbour
Giving her pots a little water
Another washing his car
As water flowed down the tar

I bent over the balconys edge,
Let my nostrils flair
Raking the air
Groping for, but not finding
Just some more
Of that smell of yore

Wishing,
It was a thing I could taste
Make of it, a juicy paste...

Yesterday, in that corner shop
On the shelf at the very top
Was a little clay pot of brick red
Marked thirty and two hundred
It was a moment of serendipity
In this treasure filled city.
The perfect pot I could ever find
Made of clay, of a finer kind
It had survived the voyage
From a faraway coastal village,
While other shards told the tale
Of the journey's ravage

I put down the thing fragile
On my kitchen's black tile
In just an hour, it had turned the water so cold
In seconds, there appeared
On my steel cup, a thin white mold

I gulped a little,
But caught it mid throat
For I felt a dusty aftertaste
I pressed it to the roof of my mouth
Indeed, it had the hint of earth
The pot had passed on it's nature
Infused the water with it's flavour

I rolled it on my tongue
Gulped, and rolled it again
In a recursive rolling and gulping
Of the slowest motion ever of water drinking

In the summer dry
Under a Cloudless sky
At long long last
Was fulfilled a wish of the past
In a cup of water
From the hands of a potter
I had the delight
Of biting the dust