Memory of My Father
Every
summer
a
honey bird used to build her nest
underneath
our tiled roof
in
the veranda
when
you were here.
One
evening she left her nest
leaving
behind the empty nest for us.
It
was the last time she built her nest.
One
afternoon in sunshine
on
the lane to our home
you
sang a song of drumbeats
four
or five people and an owl hoot
on a
stormy night in July rain.
It
was the only song you always sang
and
it was the last time you sang it.
Then
you fell ill
and
lay bedridden for two years.
As
you lay dying
you
told me stories
while
I was listening to the slanting rain.
It
was the last rain of the year.
One
night in the dim light of the ward
in a
public hospital you died.
Nowadays
I often sleep during the day.
When
I wake up everywhere in the room
the
same dim light of the night you died.
And
in the gloom one empty nest.
In
the brittle pages yellowed with time
I no
longer know what I read everyday.
On Love
As
usual
five
or six times
that
bird sang
and
her twilight song
was
mine.
Who
knows
why
did that girl tell me
her
house was on the bank
of a
river
in
one afternoon
some
twenty five years ago?
The
whole afternoon
in
the shadow of a small hill
I
never climbed
there
were childhood flowers
I
long missed.
Untitled
An
old mosque
by
the river.
In
the graveyard
amid
the green grass
tiny
yellow and blue flowers
and
my friend was buried here
some
thirty years ago.
My
friend who was kind enough
to
call me brother
on
one rainy afternoon.
Is
it snowing tonight?
It
is snowing.
Beyond
the endless fields
on
the foot of a hill
our
mud house.
In
the shadows of the flame
of a
kerosene lamp
on
the wall
a
five year old boy.
Howsoever
sad it maybe
I
would like to return there.
And
it starts raining.
Night Walk in Heavy Rain
The
old man
from
the hill
where
I spent
my
childhood
and
tearful
were
my eyes
when
I met him
on
our old street
last
evening.
Everything
in me
was
just a moment
as I
looked
into
his eyes
just
like that ant
on
the wall
of a
shop near us
or a
leaf falling
from
a corner tree
or
that bird
which
cast its shadow
on
the page
I
was quite unaware
of
myself.
I
remember
it
was here
in
the same place
I
crossed the road
with
my father
one
night in rain
when
I was
about
a six-year-old boy
and
walked
all
the way
in
torch light
through
the lanes,
by-
lanes, fields
and
then took the track
zigzagging
uphill
where
our hut stood
waiting
for us
in
heavy rain.
Twilight Again
a
drop fell
on
the potted plant
in
the yard
from
a bare branch
an
old tree
at
the riverside said
twilight
again
maybe
long ago
it
was written
he
would end
with
a thin blade
of
grass
on
the hillside
of
his childhood
in a
moment
of darkness
Tekisui RC is a poet currently based in Kozhikode, India. He also writes under the name M.A.Ramachandran. Tekisui's poetry has appeared in Lion and Lilac Magazine,Stripes Literary Magazine, Rat's Ass Review, Too Well Away Literary Journal, Arc Magazine, Setu Magazine and elsewhere. Additionally his poems have been published in three anthologies.
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