Sipra Pati
Remember
Those nights when we lay on the terrace
Counting stars
Spinning yarns of make-believe
Listening to the rustle of the coconut trees
As the summer breeze tugged at them
The lone bat swooping down,
Swerving at the last minute
When its sensors picked up our voices
From afar the strains of a song from someone’s radio
And miles above… a soundless steel bird with flickering
lights
Headed to foreign skies…
our minds and tales following it
the soft thud of a falling fruit in the neighbor’s garden
there was a rhythm, maybe not quite…
but dopamine it was.
For even now – forty summers past
(or thereabouts)
When I go there… a lazy smile on my lips
The same summer breeze brushes my cheek
Pushing an errant lock into my eyes
I hear my dog’s contented sigh (at a doggie dream, perhaps)
the off-tune voice of a worker cycling home from a long day
the ring of his bicycle bell
(maybe just whimsical… who’s on
the road anyways)?
Purpose-free nights
They were
A colloquy with freedom of a different kind
Naïve I choose not to be
To yearn for time travel.
I don’t know about you.
But me – I just like to..
Remember.
