Category: Poetry

We roam about our own unique worlds. Every once in a while, a friend appears, a flash of lightning strikes the sky. They shine on a patch of hidden garden, spot a faint promise silenced forever, and salvage a parched, passive soul. They gleam for a mere second, whoosh! back to their world. The velvet blue sky retains the only proof of their presence, a glimmer in our eyes cast wide.

8’o clock, and you walk into the bee-hive of Brisbane CBD. Your ten minute stroll to office is a full length feature film. A kaleidoscope.

You sidestep a broken tile, almost bump into the coffee cup of the man in front. School kids cross you like a herd of sheep, jostling, screaming, joyful. A lone smoker puffing away at the corner of the Marriott, watching an animated couple arguing in Spanish. You pass him fast, your lungs still suck in a hint of blue nicotine.

The signal turns red, twenty more seconds. You close your eyes to bring in the smell of fresh coffee from the cafe called Morning Ritual. You open your eyes to the climbers and creepers up the stone-walled 19th century church, up to the many colours of Brisbane sky, coloured by its river, textured by its people. People you don’t know, you don’t know yet. New colleagues, new customers, new neighbours, new fellow-pedestrians.

New cafe baristas too. You made a new friend earlier today. Karpin, the cafe owner, the sole barista who opens his shop each day at 6am, even on a Sunday. He told you he never took a break, never took a single day off in all ten years. Did you believe him? The man looked calm, and his flat-white stirred you up. You liked talking to him, talk about your grandfather, how he ran a restaurant, back in the day, not so successfully. You didn’t tell that part.

You soak it all in. The signal is still red. What’s wrong? Ah, did time stop for you to breathe-in this glorious new city?

You see the old lady with wild hair, storming across the pavement, deranged, rambling, in pain, almost blocking you. You sense she is hurt, lost, lonely, and never in a million years going to be a threat, yet you try ignoring her, avoid her trajectory, leaping towards the signal, and hope it turns green, oh God!, rush and jump into the pedestrian crossing, all the while astonished by your flight, your fright, and your sudden descent from that self-congratulatory, priestly state of altruism into a hollow pit of apathy, worse, disgust.

You walk.

Amma will move
Amma will move again
She moved when asked
She moved without asking.
 
She moved across cities, jobs, and houses
She moved well when she had it in her
She climbed up the parapet
To clean, to dust, to remove
She ran to catch the bus to office
To earn, to support, to care
 
She lent her limbs to grind spices
She bent her hips to sweep corners
She swirled those wet clothes under the sun
She spun around like a top
 
She held her son
She rocked her daughter,
She kept eyes open, 
as they fell to slumber.
 
She walked when needed
She ran when needed
She gasped for breadth
Her legs were tired
Her eyes were dry
Her hips were weak
Her hands were trembling
 
She moved when she was young
She moved when she was a teen
She moved with her father
She moved with her brothers and sisters
She moved with her husband
She moved with her son and
She moved with her daughter
 
She moved from Ramanathapuram where she was born
She moved to Pudukkottai, and then to Coimbatore. 
She moved briefly to Hyderabad
She then moved with all to Bangalore.
She moved across three houses within Bangalore.
She moved across two floors of the same house in Bangalore.
 
She was moved again to Coimbatore
She has been moving for the last seventy years
She cannot move anymore.
She cannot be moved anymore.
 
Amma cannot move.
But,
Amma will move.
Amma will move again.

The alter ego wrestles out, 
out of the quagmire,
it sings out loud
in simple verbs.

Across the crawling dullness,
against the passive nothings,
above the soulless whispers.

It sings from the heart,
it sings to the heart,
deafening all them joyless cousins.

It sings in blue,
the colour of day
It sings a colour,
I had not seen.

It sings a shape 
my hands conceal
It sings a truth
my verses obscure.

When I err and trigger
her to hurt in anger,
the "Sorry!"s burn in her silent terror,
my stories flop down her upper lip tremor.

Those calm eyes hide a fidgety beat within,
a stray hair drops to her cheek's murmur.

I plead once more,
I plead an hour more.
Off I go sleep in dread,
my heavens in hell, thorns beyond.

There! She sings, 
a fainty old dance,
a smile benign,
lets me crawl up grand.

Numbers tumble, float across,

Rows of shadows long and noisy

On the edges of an A3 sheet lay

licking fingers, scratching heads.