Dreamcatcher

While I stir my tea with that li’l silver spoon, I miss you no more. The only thing it reminds me now is of the man with stained teeth, who how easily convinced us to buy it from him. I also vaguely remember the corner table where we crooned over the spoon forgetting entirely about our mud-cake in that nameless bakery point. He claimed it to be an antique piece capable of bringing good luck to us whenever we stir our tea with it. Lucky charm! Is not that we called it? And in between the layers of all these vagaries, I realized again that I truly miss you no more. Still few left-over memories, just like the design intricately carved on the spoon, are etched forever on the handle of my heart. But what about the love that vaporized leaving nothing but drops of lemon in the tea cup?

~*~ 

No, the past does not haunt me any longer. It’s just that I have lost the art of trusting. Or the way I see it now, it is the unceremonious inability to trust my own heart anymore that still evokes zillions of feelings and emotions. At one moment happiness brims me up. And the next it’s the incorrigible tears that fight to escape their negligible existences. 

You came in my life just like a scented waif of air. Amidst the cacophony of modern madness that whistles in and around the concrete jungle of Delhi-NCR, your eyes caught the doleful me who tried her best to put up a happy face. And every time you wipe those invisible tears that fall from my eyes…. I feel my heart reaching one step nearer to you. It becomes a huge task to have a control over the heart-beats that go mad and thrive to tear the heart apart. 

But I am afraid of the love that my soul encounters in your deep eyes. Unlike mine, your eyes are of darker brown color… a shade towards black almost. I see the element of love swimming there …gleefully giving birth to hope, aspirations and uncountable starry dreams. I am afraid of them for I don’t trust my own emotions anymore… for I am afraid to have that power in my hands to hurt you in any possible way. 

When your hands subtly touch me… I experience ripples of emotions in me. As if the li’l silver spoon has stir me from within. And then…my heart speaks in the language of poetry…verse after verse I fall in love with you. But suddenly in the mid of this entire cosmos I feel myself drowning. The ripples contract and suck me in. And at that very moment of oscillating stubborn memories, word by word the poetry fades, the love ebbs and all there is left to experience is a dappled blank paper. I am afraid to be that blank paper in your life devoid of feelings, emotions, and colors for you. The silver spoon fails to stir me anymore. 

When at night, you shield me in your arms… leaving just the enough space to breath heavily. I hallucinate under the spell of your magical voice. I see a field of blooming sunflowers… swaying with the wind and laughing with the sun. For some miniscule moments… I just want to break all the self-made shackles that adorn me and run towards the Unknown with you. But I am afraid… for I know the sunflowers will wither and I won’t have anything left in me to love you with. Just like disposable tea-cups I am afraid to abandon you there. Silly tea-spoons are not meant for stirring love. 

It’s not that I don’t understand your love for me. It’s just that the magic of the Tea-cups and the Tea-spoons don’t work on me anymore. I guess I have grown up and these things are best left to the small girls to play with. 

Unlike him, on this birthday of mine you should gift me a Dream-catcher instead. 

Corridors of my heart.

From the corridors of my heart

I see you in my morning sun. 

Warm and loving- 

Comforting my azure life. 

But I want you in my summer noons 

To burn me. To turn me. 

O! Burn me you sun 

And turn me to ashes- 

Make me yours.

Broken yet Intact.

 

A couple of days back while I was taking my regular stroll in the lunch time; I found this beautiful box beneath a tree. Out of habit, I immediately clicked a picture of it thinking it to be a beautiful addition to my FB album ‘In and around office’. I have created this photo album in order to preserve the moments and memories associated with my office before they just fade away to oblivion. I was very curious to know what was inside the box and actually went out to check back if somebody has dared to open it or not. Call it superstition or concern, I did not touch it. Neither did I go nearer to it once I was done with happily clicking it. :) But the curiosity never left me alone and haunted me till I created my own story revolving around it. So here on the second day of the A-Z Challenge, I present the story I weaved around it. I was adamant to write a poem on it though unlike before verses do not come to me anymore. This also happens to be my first experience where I have attempted to write a poem forcibly and hence not at all happy with it. But then right now my motto is only to write, write, and write. And hence here I present my tad bit long and un-lyrical poem to you all. If only it could be called a poem at all. 

Somewhere between life and death, 

Hangs this murky land 

Where broken pieces of memories 

From the bygone era stay. 

They don’t grow, nor do they die 

But their heartbeats cease to sway. 

I was told to wander here no more 

As detachment was the key. 

Broken were they, one by one 

With every hit of stone. 

They took their turn to bereave me of you 

By hitting on my soul. 

I was silent, but they hauled 

Till I was left with none. 

O! How to tell them for they don’t know 

The process to take you away. 

Broken pieces of memories 

Now lay scattered across my feet 

Blood and tear and some silent cries 

Have left their traces to read 

One by one, I picked them up 

Red, yellow, and green 

I stashed them up for many years to come 

In a wooden chest decaying. 

Thirty years have passed like that 

With entrapped memories in heart 

Piece by piece they still shimmer 

When they catch the glimpse of light 

But My life will be over in days to come 

O! What will I take along with me? 

Only the memories stashed in my heart 

And the pieces of my broken dreams. 

The son is here with the box in hand 

Followed by his wife. 

My feeble eyes could read her face 

Marked with ominous fear. 

I smiled, for the world still does not know 

How to take you away from me. 

Now the box full of memories 

Red, yellow, and green 

Rest beneath the tree 

Life moves on. 

Gaps get filled 

Making spaces for the new. 

Bangles, bangles, bangles everywhere 

As the symbol of the 'Pure'

But broken ones find a place 

Only in the shore. 

For bangles once broken 

Though they shimmer and shine

Are auspicious no more.

April and the Autumn Leaves

And somewhere at the corners of the road when the leaves rustle, I run to my window with the hope to see you knocking the door. Leaves, Autumns, and Aprils! How the three of these connected the dots of our life together. How over a heap of fallen leaves you taught me to find April in the midst of barren autumn. 

It’s been twelve years since I ran away from my so called home. As my mother breathed her last I gathered every bit of my breath to run for my life. Even though I had nothing left with me, not even the leftovers of hope...still I wanted to have a life of my own. A yearning for a home where there was no existence of selfish discord of my very own father, took me to places and at last to You. 

I was born in the month of April. No one remembered the date. As someone rightly said, why to remember the dates that are ominous enough for generations to come. I was born a girl, enough for my father to despise me to death. Added was the curse of my partial blindness. Sometimes I wonder what did they do when they discovered that I am to be found no where? Or did they at all search for me? What would have happen to me had I not taken the decision to run away? Clueless and aimless, I decided just to run...only to meet you at the very end of the world. 

Can you hear her playing the piano? Her fingers fall like feather on the keys and move like a humming bird’s wings. And as she sings the very song that you used to sing for me, drops of honey sprinkle around. Dad! Did you again catch the tears in my eyes? I am sorry but I do cry when I miss you. Out of sadness, out of happiness and out of everything you are to me, yes! I do cry. 

Remember! When sitting on that heap of fallen leaves while you wiped my tears away, I promised you to never cry again? But some promises are meant to be broken while the love lasts forever. I was no one to you. I did not even have a name. Back home I was just a nameless object devoid of everything that made me a human. The ways the world run is uncanny and beyond my understanding. There are people who do not value their own child just because she is a girl and at the same time there are people who do not think twice before adopting a homeless girl child. Even my partial blindness could not deter you from giving me an eternal place in your heart. 

It’s 6th of April again dad! Come, wish me Happy Birthday. Come, hold me close to your chest Dad and rock me to sleep. The lemon cheesecake that I have made today lacks the dust of your wrinkled sun-burned hands. Twelve years ago on this very day, holding my li’l hand you took me to the country church. As the Father sprinkled the holy water on me, dear dad, do you remember how your heart got filled with pride, love and hope? I was finally commemorated with a name. April! That’s what you named your darling daughter. That day you broke your promise too to never cry again. Some promises are meant to be broken. Did not I always tell you this? Come, hold my feeble yet strong hands once more dad and let’s go to the church again. Let us pray together for one more beautiful year ahead. Dad! See, I have got few wrinkles too! Just like yours, line after line, they tell stories too. And how amazing is that! 

Dad! I wish you were here today to see your darling grand-daughter sing for you. It is the same song that you used to sing to me in remembrance of your wife. Dad, I never told you this but even in her absence I have always felt her motherly presence on the skin of my soul. I have never seen her but I have known her through your songs and stories. Dad, thank you for giving me a Mother too. 

Dagny right now has completely immersed herself. No! This time I am not going to hide my tears anymore. I will let them to fall down. Let her see how precious her grandpa is for her mom. This time I will join her and will sing my heart out. Dad! Can you hear your April singing?

Daddy, Come, sit, while your li'l April takes the charge of the piano keys, 

The falling leaves, drift by my window 

The autumn leaves, of red and gold 

I see your lips, the summer kisses 

The sun-burned hands, I used to hold. 

Since you went away, the days grow long 

And soon I’ll hear, old winter’s song 

But I miss you, most of all, my darling 

When autumn leaves start to fall. 

Yes I miss you, most of all, my darling 

When autumn leaves start to fall. 

P.S: The Song is Autumn Leaves by Eric Clapton.


Music inspires me to weave stories around them and hence this post is my entry to Indiblogger's The#Connected Music Experience sponsored by HP Connected Music India 

Wordless Wednesday