1. Afterglow
5 p.m. Yellow bees invite blue china clouds
They forget the sun cannot light the lamp
5 p.m. You are drinking tea with honey
Inside a penumbra by the Radhachuda tree
You can wait, then bring the oil lamp out
Circumnavigate the non-existent tulaxi
The Namghar’s 5 p.m. silence will soon spew
Its tranced kortaal dueting with the khol
5 p.m. You will know that time has struck
Gooseberry shadowing the home of a dream.
(Sentiment: my parents sold off their own house in Guwahati, Assam -- where my brother and I grew up from pre-teens till we went to the university -- and moved away. Tulaxi is a sacred plant; Namghar is a worship house; kortaal and khol are musical instruments cymbals and narrow drum)
2. Morphologia
My mother’s litheness has melted
on to a lump of thin muscles limp
her skin a silken furrowed Kabuki fan
she’s not plump anymore, my Ma
those breasts once like mountained pies
now they whisper each other stories
of passion that hangs loose, peeled
her mouth’s cinnamon is browned
and her hair more jasmine than kohl
the white roses at the porch know
have seen the bloom fade, with years’ trim
and she worships more her favorite
man-god, feeds him like an infant
now that she can’t have us on her lap anymore
**
Seeing distant rivers on the TV she starts
off about the playground by the Surma
and the tea gardens where jhumur
was the first step she had learned
**
My mother's city was not her friend, she
loved it only from the Xarania’s top
by its aloof white dome, her brown eyes
mapping the Moha-baahu’s breadth
for a lore she sung us from her past
Now afternoons pass, evenings flower
with incense in their hearts, she lies
from the long day of her godhuli life
bundled and river-clay-soft on her bed
as if no bones or flesh make that body
it makes me utter in a nervous even tone:
"Ma will you wake up, shall I get you some tea?"
no dawn-time clanking Corelle bowls of sudden hunger pangs
no cheeky slip-ons sitting scattered pretty on my rugs
no demolished cushions from hours of crushing
no shaving foam while I pick up the morning toothbrush
no mixing up of towels or ‘oh yours smell like hell’ time
No fancy breakfasts, no standard lunches
no chasing the tail of time, let the sky wither
no saying ‘but I said so, and you should know ‘
no dipping finger in the sauce to taste, how cheap!
so more it seemed
the dreams were truer
than their interpretations
you are back, a watermark on my waiting
no more peeking out at the Canada geese
from behind my closed window blinds.
(Sentiment: Mr. M was gone for 8 and half days across half the world... )
