The Ornaments of Silence

The birds set loose
at daybreak
cooing, pecking at the walls
invite us – in strange languages.

Awaiting a wave on its way
– peeping at a future – the past
flies from all directions.

Time – like a shrapnel – strikes,
lodges within, breathes.
The city makes its heat
festering the heartbeats.

Flowers blooming everywhere
honouring their springs,
oozing colours – bright and crisp –
from their petals, your smile
of last summers, dried
rasping on the road, breaking
on a little movement.

Each day the house opens
like a jaw
and shuts us within.

Leaving the city, unacknowledged
without a farewell,
carrying within my shoes
the sweat, the rain.

The footsteps like twin falling leaves
swirl wayward, stumble
into melancholic memories,
constructing monuments to the restless days
spent sitting with bare feet
dipped in the flowing river,
thinking how much of life
I wasted in your bosom, dear city,
convincing you that is how
the nature of the life was –
grafted, never feeling secure
always looking elsewhere,
never belonging,
soaring into the sky
of longings.

On a rainy evening, returning home.
Light wearied of its rectilinear paths
leaps off the lamp posts, spreads
over the street, wallowing in
the footsteps of strangers.

The vehicles’ headlights stretched
like a pair of hands
running to catch the rain
falling as fireflies
on the windshields.

The twin wipers swatting them away
like Sisyphus chases after his rocks.
Imagine them happy
whispers a friend, diffusing
into the heart
the melancholy of the rain.

Imagining them happy
I returned home
Drunk, tired
of the weight
I slept
while the rain outside
poured the light,
untethering from the sources
over my window
flashing
to let itself in.

The darkness in the room
with each flash of light
deepens,
shoos light away.