Child labour

I tremble at the distant sea as if it will

Sweep in and take me away anytime,

I am still to get used to this wilderness,

Blue and vast and seething with waves

That wants to come in and steal the land,

I keep telling myself there is enough sand

Here to stop the water from reaching me,

Looking at the other children playing 

I ask, I ask my tiny little feet to shed

This fear of a raging, restless, fierceness ---

I am not here to play or laugh or lounge

Like my peers who don't need to work

I am here to sell this fluffy pink candy

To these toddlers and their parents who

Want to go back in time again for a while,

You tell me child labour is banned here

I want to tell you childhood itself has been.

Going home

The hands falter now and the writing

Goes awry with bankers questioning

The signatures as if they were forged,

The kolams look more like a child's

No more would they delight anyone

Except sisters-in-law who resented

Your imaginative dotless handiwork,

The recipes have to be checked as

The memory can't be trusted anymore

Children do not like the cooking as much,

The world keeps receding out of reach

Though it is at the tip of your fingers

But being with yourself is truly being home

If the dark one who remembers the worst

Can be put on a leash and told to be quiet.

Elsewhere

The cold water feels crisp

In the January morning

But it can't be used unmixed,

It feels good to see the bucket

Filling fast under the tap,

The complimentary soap

Smells different, not a brand

We have used before,

To start the day elsewhere

Is a strange experience

Through the window is seen

The hilltop, the room chosen

Just for this view, and premium

The others are all asleep, tired

After a day of sightseeing 

With mild motion sickness ----

The mind was in a whirl 

When we came back

The eyes had taken in all

The mist-draped beauty 

They could and did not trust

Memory to keep all of it

The camera had stored most

Of the scenic spots visited ----

To look back and recall and relive

When the tiring feet say no more.

Change

The distance back is longer

Than it was and is difficult

To traverse for what we left

Behind has not stayed behind,

It has changed, given way to

What doesn't like to stay still,

There is not even a footprint

To show we were there when

We were there filling the place

With our presence and thoughts,

The inexhaustible hope must still

Be there in the air filling hearts

Looking to leave behind the city 

With no place for them and find a home

Where hands, not faces, are wanted

To go back is to find out that time itself

Never stays still and changes what stays

And changes what leaves for change.

Cosmic

We want to be everything we see

The tree, the breeze, the bird, the sky

We want to be them for a while and be back

Inside the familiar house that looks out,

The road turns right and disappears

What was seen is no more seen 

Must still move beyond the building

Seen still by the surveillance eye,

The mind imagines everyone is alike

Going back to the days they left behind

Seeking respite in the bursts of bonhomie,

Remembering is not the way we want it

The happy streets we like give way to ones

Where we walked the gauntlet of hostility

To be without a thought is to be spacious

Suddenly so very spacious as to be cosmic.

Late bloomer

There was a rose bush

We planted in our yard

It did not yield any flower

Past when it was expected to

I could not believe it could not

It seemed most unnatural for it to

Be so unproductive to not fufil

Its purpose in a life we had brought

Into the world with our diligent care

I felt personally responsible for its

Infertility and pleaded with it everyday

To at least come out with one blossom

To remember it by before we vacated ----

It seemed to have listened and the day

We left the city behind it had a lovely bud.

Musings in the mist

In the the winter months it seems

There is more of silence inside

The house because the fans are off,

You could maybe hear the dew fall

If it does not come down so quietly

The cool weather favours quietness

One silence encourages more silence 

The rare mist brings forth reverence

Music seems like another form of silence

It is more mellifluous with the many violins

And voices sounding like springing from

Realms not accessible in warmer times

Reality is altered at night and street lights

Wear halos not normally seen when sober

Crickets begin to be heard and the ears

Remember the happy songs of the past

When there was hope and death too far.