A blog by Anjana Sen
You were born beautiful, I hold you tighter,
Through those thick glasses, eyes shine brighter.
Through those stainless-steel train-track braces,
your self-conscious smile lifts me lighter.
Through your undyed hair, grace,
unpierced innocent face,
untattooed skin,
you are my
fighter!
I began with you,
you ended with me.
How natural this seems now,
now that the ferocity of grief has been dealt with.
Wild red rage grief,
has turned into mellow yellow,
and I can begin to feel like I should,
like you always knew I could.
Your first-born, you could tell.
They read together silently, side by side.
His armchair, threadbare. Hers, newer, firmer.
Ignoring the cacophony of chaos in the air,
few words were spoken, much more to share.
Sometimes, in the middle of a line,
he would rest a gentle hand on hers.
She felt his skin, translucent, paper thin,
but said nothing, smiled and read instead.
To still and calm this mind of mine,
To write a verse on profound matter.
I strain to train this brain to shine,
Hush this patter, this mindless chatter.
Deep-breathing works, the heartbeat slows,
And hunt begins for poetry themes.
But conscious nonsense, in a stream it flows,
Disjointed words from random dreams.
Thought to thought, the monkey-mind jumps,
Caged in a prison with finite words.
He handed the envelope to me this morning,
The young builder, wielding a sledgehammer and a smile.
He found it by chance, without any warning,
Thought it might have been there for a while.
In the crevices of the bricks and mortar he was breaking,
The hammer and muscles bringing the roof down.
Destruction before creation, the new kitchen we were making,
A piece of paper, sepia, against the dusty brown.