Celebrating festivals that aren't quite your own

In that city, it is easy to slip

into the pretence that you’ve never left home -

all along the lanes of the Island

and along the riverside

there’s the same mauve petal-foam

of the jacaranda tree,

the same flamboyant firesparks

the gulmohur shreds on the roads,

the stone built citadel, the pointed arch

in the crumbling ancient walls.

If you look away a moment

and look quickly back again

they exactly echo the ones in

the ruins of the mausoleum

next to your old schoolbus-stop.

On a radiant spring day,

there are two small boys

in holey singlets on a terrace

flying exuberantly coloured kites;

just as there used to be

in the old neighbourhood

off the Ring Road;

the smell of horse and camel dung,

the silky perfumes of old, old dust

hung like streamers on the dusk.

At the start of winter,

every December

fake snowflakes and Santas

are plastered on shop windows

in places that have never witnessed snow;

that’s the same too.

There are fifteen-foot dressed trees

in the atria of buildings, miles

of tinsel and fairy lights;

they make you smile

and rope you into

secretly celebrating festivals

that aren’t quite yours.

That entire city is a conspiracy

to rope you in; to make you celebrate

things that aren’t quite your own.

You are given two homes on earth,

one is where you feel at home,

the other where you can pretend you are.

I am travelling and will catch up with you when I get back. Meanwhile, a very merry Christmas and the best of 2016 to you, if you are celebrating. If like me, you don't, then well, there's always that pretence :) Happiness and peace to you all.