Can't Pin It Back on the Map

Screengrab from the net. Credit where due.

 

It feels consequential. Like small talk

isn’t small. Like the sharpening winds have brought

more than cusp seasons. Memories of smoke.

The varieties of ash and dust that choke throats.

 

We both wear black and white. Ordinary, spare.

Her eyes are haunted. And I instantly know

another tower has imploded somewhere,

entire lifetimes have telescoped in one go.

 

She rises, lets me have the seat. I accept.

Going far? No, just a couple more blocks.

Smoke and ashes are our eyes. Not much left.

And the texture no longer feels like small talk.

 

She squares her shoulders. Adjusts her rucksack straps.

Some things once lost can’t be pinned back on maps.

~~~

Last week was the 25th anniversary. Quarter century. Enough to bring some long range perspective. 

I spent most of these 25 years in the Middle East. I was in Bahrain, at home with my infant son on the day. The baby was having his afternoon nap, I was having my afternoon coffee and TV. Awful, searing, unforgettable images. Three thousand people dead, the worst terrorist attack of all time.

The retribution was massive, massively out of proportion and affected the region I was in closely. Since 2001, the global war on terror has claimed 4.5 million lives, displaced another 38 million. And now on the anniversary, classified files have been released that show there was ample intelligence that something terrible was coming.  

Twenty five years on, the world is still at war, US is still at war. 

The question is - has the world been made safer? Are we ever getting peace?

Shades of Orange As They Came Apart

I didn’t notice things – the colours of lipstick

for instance - she wore a shade between peach and brick;

dotted in her scarves too, the whole range of  orange

woven in her skirts and art, and in her magic.

She wore the deepest henna, that burnt tangerine

between her fingers, on her knuckles; dark, crushed green

staining her palms pumpkin-warm, climbing vines, blossoms

on her pulse in light apricot, and nectarine.

She fed me ripe oranges, taking them apart

tenderly in her palms, like segments of my heart;

she prised my world, eternity and each minute

wide open with her hands. The taste of that tart

sweetness remained, each segment a sunrise transferred

from her lifeline to mine. The fragrance remembered

as first sunlight flames on water.  The formless gains

shape as darkness ebbs. Undying preciousness, coloured.

In her rooms the walls are orange blossom, rugs gray

rainclouds, an ancient magazine and the doorway

fall open like her hands.  I shut my eyes, notice

the shades of orange in rust and dust, mild decay.

This is the final version of a poem I created for one of the prompts during the MOOC I did over July-August.  (Did I tell you there's talk of an anthology being compiled with some of the works that were created there? Watch this space)

The assignment was themed on Elegy and Memorial.  I thought I'd post it here today with thoughts for the families who have lost loved ones to terrorism in all the places that touch my heart, and life. 


The season's changing out here where I am, though the temperatures remain high, they are slowly softening. Much of this region of course has two seasons - hot and less hot, but my brain and body are still attuned to the Indian six. There's a cleaning up of the skies back home about now, lots of fluffy clouds chasing off the heavy dark monsoon ones, the festival season starts in less than a month.  It's a particularly beautiful time of the year.  'Sharat' we call it in Bengali, there is no English counterpart available, it's not autumn yet, a pre- or proto-autumn is more like it.

Here too, the plants which had been singed to cinders during the summer, are greening back to normal.  Flowers have their happy faces on, the leaves are plumping up.  I have been writing more, learning more, blogging a little less than usual, but the blog's going to green itself back to normal as well. Things are changing outside and inside. My year so far feels like an adventure and a gigantic blessing, which I suppose are synonyms really. 

I hope your year, and month, is going well too.

All the world's a war-zone

The flowers dry, the candles burn;

both reach their ends. The world still turns.

The streets are full, the café chat

is about revenge, tit for tat,

air-strikes, mortal wounds, ground combat.

I cannot take in any of that.

I only know she won’t return.

Although each time the doorbell rings

my heart leaps once, instantly sings

then recalls the days before.

She’ll never be back at my door.

The talk is thick with migrants; war;

how exactly to settle the score.

But I can’t relate to those things.

There must be justice, and a stern

reprimand,  offenders must learn

how strong we stand, crime never pays.

The news channels are choked for days

with some or other leader’s speech-haze,

clips gone viral, constant replays,

rehashing the current concern.

I just know that flowers dry rough

that candles aren’t warm enough.

I just know that my room’s gone cold,

my heart is shrivelled and grown old;

she’ll never again cross this threshold

whatever events might unfold.

That’s my truth, the rest’s just stuff.

For all the families - in Nigeria, in Egypt, in India, and in France and elsewhere in the world, who have lost loved ones to terrorism.

In Memoriam

There is no-one to call her name

or keep a vigil, she isn’t me or you
not every life is weighed the same
not all deaths are quite equal value

 

an orphaned, unknown fruit seller

a crushed mass as she passes by
on her usual beat among the lonely squalor
of the crowded roads her days occupy

 

mongrels sniff at what looks like blood

a bunch of grapes in the ditch lies squashed
vultures dip out their solemn hoods
couple days and the whole is washed

 

the city gets back to its usual business

no-one notices one fruit seller less.


Over at dVerse poets are observing a minute of silence to remember and honour the victims of 9/11.  This post is very respectfully dedicated to the many thousand nameless victims of terrorism in my own country, as well as those in the wider world.