It is funny if you think of it,
No, really think...
I feel as if my door is alive,
That I can hear it breathe,
I can hear it heave, creak, move, complain,
I can even hear it listening to me...
When I sob, it listens,
When I listen, it converses,
Like wind chimes, it shudders with life in the quietest of moments,
Unexpected...
Like a secret gushing out from its secret place...
When I shut myself away from the world,
I shut myself in with it...
And in those awkward moments when I find myself alone,
Shut in or shut out...
I know I am not,
Because it’s always there,
A few feet away,
Listening, a pulsating silence that grows,
Till I wish I had a way,
To shut myself off...
(Without a door, of course!)
He was lost to me, before even,
I knew I had lost him.
Under the white cover and grieving faces,
My grandfather lay still,
Bonier than I remembered him,
I was nineteen that summer I think.
Days before he left us in grief,
He walked more than six miles they said,
That strong a man at his ripe age,
Shaking with tears, I wasn’t sure if I should be proud or just let it be.
As I shed my tears, I did not know why I cried.
We had never been very close.
I was shy as any child could be, of a grandfather who rarely talked,
He was a man who never showed what went inside his head.
I wasn’t even sure if he liked me, his first grandchild (or perhaps his second, but that’s a different story!).
All I remembered was a beautiful kerchief,
He gave me years ago because I desired it.
On certain odd days, I can still feel its texture between my fingers, soft like silk,
A kerchief in which I wanted to sew beautiful roses before gifting him,
Like memories, so that he would remember me.
I still did not know why it was so important,
That he remembered me.
He never did get that piece of silk,
For the flowers I had sewn tore the material,
I was ashamed to hand it back to him,
Memories as torn and ugly as my impatience.
Years later when he left,
Without the gift that I had meant for him,
As I wept for a loss I had not yet grown to understand,
By his eternal bedside,
I remembered that I had forgotten to ask him if I had a place in his memories,
And if he would like to keep me in there forever...
I stood as a tree,
You came to me,
You asked for fruits and wood,
I gave you all I could.
You craved for more,
The wood I wore,
So you took my breath,
And gave me death,
The earth hugged me,
From your greed, I was free,
But you searched for me again,
Once more for your gain,
For my carcass was now,
The coal ready for your stove,
And you burned me dead,
To warm yourself for bed,
The little of me that you left,
Spoils of your bit of theft,
Got still deeper inside the earth,
And baked in the earth’s hearth,
You searched once more for me,
And on finding me you were glee,
For then I was the diamond rare,
One and unique without a pair,
Now when you look at me with wonder,
I would advise you to ponder,
And give your life a worth and a meaning,
And get to work rather than dreaming,
Get wet in rain and bask in the sun,
Turn your worries into challenge and fun,
Open your mind and let people see,
That you are much more precious than me.
The clock tick-tocked into the night,
No moonlight walked in through the windows,
No sleep cradled the old man in its arms,
He cannot sleep, they give up.
He simply cannot, cannot sleep.
That other day, the early morn,
As rain had come and gone,
He had looked at the sleeping child,
In the scented wooded coffin,
His grandchild, his only grandchild he had loved so,
The old man had looked at his own son,
Slouched by the door screaming,
Deeply shattered by his own loss,
A wounded man in his wounded house of dreams,
So far, so far away from healing.
You must be his rock,
Allow your son to grieve his heart,
He needs to cry to feel sane,
He needs his time and space, they say,
While the old man blinks his tears away.
They did not tell him what he should do,
Where to place his own burden down,
With his own grief so hard to bear,
The grief of his own loss,
Together with his son’s despair,
Like every night, he looks transfixed at the Liffey outside,
He can hear the gently lapping waves,
He tries to close his eyes and still,
He cannot sleep, he gives up,
He simply cannot, cannot sleep.
There are woods on the other side,
From the balcony where I look,
Sipping generously on my tea,
A little warm, a little cold.
Outside the grasses are soft,
The woods are deep,
The world beckons,
As I keep a watchful wake ,
Aware of the time swiftly passing by.
I sweat a little in the humid morning,
While the air conditioner hums inside.
Inside is a whole different world,
A sleeping child,
A waiting bed,
A cold side of the bed waiting,
For a husband who will return soon.
I take my time sipping,
I take my time waiting,
This peace in my life,
So welcome a relief.
For soon in minutes,
The scramble inside would begin,
A waking child,
Restless footsteps,
Needy sighs,
Waiting for a mother’s return...
It would be easy to slip by unnoticed,
Into the patch of green and be lost for a while,
But it would be difficult to leave,
The life that heaves inside.
I finger the rim of my cup,
It stops my flights of fantasy,
Then I return back to my world,
And shut the door tightly behind.
