Sunday 21 July 2019

Thirty Years Later



I. 

It's almost thirty years by the time I get back
and meanwhile all the furniture's moved around
even the window's broken - the street lights and sounds
whatever's within, beyond, feel like an attack,

an assault on the memories and their value.
How can this be home? the rose bush in the courtyard
has been torn up, paved over with a ruthless, hard
concrete and fancy pedestal, much to-do

with a tulsi and a trident. While I was gone
someone has changed the drapes, painted the parlour walls
in a stifling shade. There are many more keyholes.
From the street a strident speech pierces known comfort zones -

intolerance wisps in the air like chloroform,
slogans shove a wet rag on the nose. This is home?





15 comments:

  1. Hari OM
    The expatriate repatriating must find yet another culture shock awaits... I know it well. YAM xx

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    1. Yes, a rather rude shock, unfortunately in the current climate.

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  2. Intolerance is one of the most pervasive poison gases isn't it? You think that your home and heart are sealed against it and then...

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    1. You keep those windows closed tight but someone else inadvertently unlatches them and opens the shutters an inch and that's it...

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  3. Hi Nila - yes what people do to our homes! It's still a tear to the heart of one's previous life ... except life does go on with the next generation forgetting and appreciating our generation and why we did things. Cheers Hilary

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    1. I guess at one level every generation undoes the previous one's handiwork and each one has to accept that's how it has to be...

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  4. This is hard and powerful.

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    1. Thank you for being here Ayala! Glad you liked the poetry.

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  5. the old saying, "You can't go home again." Tough times when decades change the fabric of a nation.

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  6. Fabulous. Goosebumps of an eerie kind crept slowly up my spine!

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    1. Thank you. Nice to see you here :) But a generally disturbing political situation all round.

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  7. There is no going back to either events or places, however much we might wish to. Memories are are as close a substitute as we can get...thanks for visiting.

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  8. Really deep. It's a shame when change isn't for the better.

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    1. It is outrageous - we seem to be regressing in humanity at a time when the progress in all other fronts is phenomenal.

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