The friendship of memory

 

A tricolour flag flutters over the fort.

Half the heart’s shattered, the other’s stoic stone -

it’s done this half-n-half many times before

so it knows it won’t mend, but can still go on.

 

The strangest moments populate memory

and the strangest, most insignificant stuff -

feather on peacock feather the noon’s layered,

softly storied and blended sandpaper rough.

 

There are kites and river banks where it’s standing

and long beaches where the casuarinas end

and whole childhoods laid out like a silken fringe;

but it knows memory isn’t always a friend

 

and it knows all footprints wash out with the tide

this side of the Arabian and that side.

Happy Independence Day to all those who're Indian by birth or at heart. Wishing all of us freedom from fear, repression and poverty. Of spirit and simple comforts.