and far,
far brighter
than the crosshairs
of sunlight,
hammocked on quivering water
it might have been that, actually, that
had gifted even the sun
with its glimmer -
it is here, in gummidipoondi,
where saffron first touched me.
*
it could have been my childhood, excepting
the unfamiliar tongue
everyone spoke, as is to be expected
of people stamped
on alien land; the children could have been my friends
and i, spilled wild
in our catching games ('running!
running!'); raw treasure -
only to travelled parents - that might be ground
finer (someday) in some other era
this would have been my father's life.
i remember the adults' slow smiles
spread like melting ghee
on their tired faces; the soles
of cementing men, cracked
white over chocolate. their sweat
an integrated incense of saffranal, rank
in afternoons. i remember the beautiful teacher,
who had kissed me hard, crying, her sari
fluttering over my fevered head (a trembling crocus
against ardent Apollo) - that day
i'd watched them pass bricks, one
swung (aglow)
by one, to another hand
a school taking shape, shaping
prospect in A - B - Cs
admittedly, the children could never have guessed. this might
have been just another game, to them - but the youths,
having learnt, tell us they can feel it
in their blood (as how it is due for their leaves
to sprout only after their minds have flowered)
to return, when they can. we looked
at their parents, then, who said
nothing (perhaps their children are the ones
who will die at home,
in peace). the picrocin is strong
on the tongue, here especially, in the sweetest
laughter - and leaves lingering
a taste
of gall
which is to be expected of sri lankan dna,
when swabbed across india
(1) Sri Lanka Refugee