The Poetic Meanders

The Poetic Meanders
The Teesta River - captured by Parth Adhikari

Saturday 5 September 2015

Late


 Late

Since, you have not yet returned.


You have not yet returned
Since the: “Don’t wait for me,
I might get late tonight;
There’s work. Love you baby.”

You have not yet replied
To: “Was the salt to taste?” -
A handwritten note in your
Questions laden lunch-case.

You have not yet called home
Since the:  “I am stuck here,
There is a meeting now –
Sales have dropped – everywhere!”

You have not yet arrived.
It is beyond midnight.
I wait in this dimness
Pierced by the streetlight.

The phone rings. Is it you?
No. “Hello, Kavita?
Have you watched the news?
Havoc! Where’s Ajoy da?”

On the television:
The Taj, Trident, Leopold
Have all been attacked, oh!
Horrible events unfold.

V.T. too! No, please God
No, let this be false!
Where are you? Why aren’t you
Answering my phone calls?

I’ve stayed up all night long,
Your parents are here. Mine
Have called a thousand times,
“Things, Ma, are far from fine.”

I reach the hospital
Hoping to find you named
In the list of those wounded,
Rather in of those unclaimed.



Years gone. No news of you.
They have cleared the debris,
Wiped clean the blood, the shells;
Just not the memory.

But you haven’t yet returned
Since the: “Don’t wait for me,
I might get late tonight;
There’s work. Love you baby.”

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