And I came back to You
after so many years,
The dawns as witness,
Winds’ savaged,
Seasons’ ravaged;
Knocked so very softly,
Hoping you won’t recognize;
Those watery eyes
That unknown lump of fear,
A single refrain humming-
Should I be trespassing?

But I have always known You,
Haven’t I?
You’ve grown,
Old, haggard and
A wee bit frail; Down
but not down,
As in ‘over’.
Your smile still lights up
the crinkled corners of your eyes,
That once spoke without a word.
Laid away dreams – you bring back alive.
Those I never cared to visit
till I came back to You,
Those I never cared to think,
Existed in You, besides.

And yet ‘I am the same’
You say…
Maybe or maybe not;
You still have that habit of confusing me,
And eliciting warmth on cold wintry days.
Winds’ savaged, Seasons’ ravaged,
Am I Him?
You putter, you stutter,
As you reclaim that day
when mortal words died
Like wounds healed, the
scars afresh each time;
When the gales of turmoil
could never still
‘Those our Times’
Now forgotten far behind.

Cruel soul, why me, coward?
Why rip away my hands and
Show me my face, today,
That I have tried so well
to hide from thee?
Morphed reflections stain the hourglass of
my Life,
Like dust streams down a window pane
Lashed suddenly by a jolt of morning rain.
In my helplessness, then
Why yoke me now, friend?