Find me like this, an ash flake
flitting from leaf to leaf,
far away, from where you immersed
my dead years, old bones.
To be purged away with river fish,
silent, darting from reed
to swaying reed, till they find
the camouflaging sea.
I will float away from the steaming
water but, like the chant
refrain that evaporated at the wake,
from our living room floor.
And find fields of grass, blade arms
interlocked, holding the line
to the unrelenting sun. Settle and find
the life of unvanquished green.
No story concludes at the immersion.
I wish I had known this
back then, at my father’s death bed.
No one burns up in a pyre.
***
Madras Courier originally ran as a broadsheet with a poetry section. It was a time when readers felt comfortable sharing glimpses of their lives through verse. If you have a poem you’d like to submit, do email us at editor@madrascourier.com.
-30-
Copyright©Madras Courier, All Rights Reserved.
You may share using our article tools. Please don't cut articles from madrascourier.com and redistribute by email, post to the web, mobile phone or social media.
Please send in your feed back and comments to editor@madrascourier.com
