At the foothills of majestic hills and mountains

Oh, Dehradun – calling me back to your trails
Where we grovelled on our hands and knees
For a view of the city from atop a hill -
Fears that joined the stormy clouds to leave me be.

Where do I find such comfort? Where do I find the
Faces of a world within a space for just a few?
Prayer flags that billow with the wind, and wishes
That float through trees and down the stream.

Oh, Dehradun – calling me from those foothills,
With a babbling brook that sounds like my name
As if this land had known me before I set foot on it,
As if the ground had all my footsteps mapped.

I will never forget the heights that took the fear of
Falling from my fragile fortitude, and taught me
How to shiver in the cold as droplets of the coming
Rains reminded me of an inundated self in awe.

Oh Dehradun – the winding roads up hills that hide
Our insecurities and dependencies. The smell of
Flowers and the earth, Bukowski scribbled on a
Rock – and all my poetry that's written in its skies.

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