The present (poem)

 In this alien land, the sense of unbridgeable difference loomed large. 

The very air smelled light; no more the anticipated heaviness of a summer's day. 

The humidity rose and settled in waves around me, burnished with birdsong. 

I strained to hear the familiar sounds of traffic, but only met the thump of basketball against hoop.

My tongue drooled for the annual Alphonso and rebelled at the acid Mexican variety.

Summer brought indecent lushness, a hint of the tropics;

but the tropics I remembered was wilted trees surrendering to the heat.

Strange, unaccustomed land; strange, unaccustomed beings! 

I have to embrace it with open arms; else the remembrance of the absent ones will undo me.  

This is the here and now; the one and only present.

I won't long for the yesteryears and might-have-been;

Welcoming this unexpected gift, I will untie the tangled skeins of an unremarkable life.