If I Try Hard Enough

(Bit by a nippy homesickness this morning, here are a few verses about Shillong and India as I used to know. About small town businesses and worries and discontent and the rain and the hills and the market.)
--
If I listen hard enough, close enough
I think I can hear the rain coming down
Like sheets of white rippled by cold winds
Smell heat escaping concrete

I remember an errand I had to run
Between taxis and banks and offices and bazaars
And the rain would not let go
Nor the issue I was having in mind

My phone had been silent for a long while
And the stereo in the cab blaringly edgy
And I watched souls pass by my window
Souls bent by small town prejudices and practices

Life envelops you at the market
The noise invites you, the colours prick you
It swarms around you like a pack of bees
Heaven-bent on some unknown purpose

If I try hard enough I hear the rains coming
Up the hills, green and moist and lush
I hear echoes of life, bird calls
People call, from shops lit by colourful lights

If I try hard enough I recall fear and demons
And hopes and dreams that grew on me
Living under the drowsing pine wood
And watching the chestnut leaves change colour
season by season

If I try hard enough I can redream my old dreams
And places I used to love so much
Places replaced by time and memory
Places I don't think so much now about