Brother Train

I remember those years of red letter boxes,

And expected cycle rings on summer noon,

Heartbeats rose and fell as he pedaled past,

No parcels nor covers, and not even a card.

We filled our father’s pen weeks past week,

Warded crows off lemon pickles left to dry,

Practiced math, wrote cursive within lines,

Until our pencils shrunk shorter than thumb.

Then came the card drowning mother in joy,

‘My brother coming across a thousand mile’

‘Bombay mail’s two minute halt’ father said,

‘On his way, not to see you, fifty mile away’

Rainclouds gathered over her furrowed eyes,

Growing heavy and low as we ran for cover,

There was lightning flash, then the thunder,

We closed our eyes tight for clouds to burst.

 

My father resisted like umbrella in hurricane,

Blown away, twisted and turned, inside out,

He sighed and resigned to his fate with sulk,

For two minute event One Day Earned Leave.

Rickshaw to bus across hot and bumpy roads,

Halted for lunch, tea, passing train, puncture,

Twice more for my mother to vomit and relax,

And once again for an unseen accident ahead.

Plodding weary to wrong platform just in time,

She ran, dodged porters, passengers, luggage,

Jumped steps, glimpsed the last coach leaving,

‘I missed my brother but at least saw his train’

Said and Done

That date less silence was never forgetting,

Nor nightly knocks on your memory’s door,

I woke to a few blank leaves that scattered,

Open between lessons on history and hope.

Had our words been sharp pebbles of shore,

Waves after wave could have dented clean,

And seasons of breeze and thunder shower,

The layered heat and dust of our daily grind.

Casting my nets far and deep into lexis flow,

I find not one idiom of flesh, blood and bone,

I retreat to ceaseless tide of days and shells,
Of what never was but what could have been.

(2013)