We bought a home
On a lease of a thousand and one expectations and heartbreaks.
Putting lock and key to our prime,
Our abode well past its due date
Where infighting and tears together rhymed.
We bought a home
Put our feet on its threshold,
on a day when the twin towers collapsed.
Foreboding death of wishful thinking,
Our hopes crawled along pint-sized miles.
Fifteen years past
Our unerring passions
were made to last
For a blanket of hope
A roof of our own.
A home made on
exact principles of our soul.
Not the one rented to us
Where land and lord rhyme together
Syllables of division
wrapped around its very
foundation.
***
We filled it with life-like spirits.
Every inch enlivened
with goodwill and generosity.
A prayer for happy times
found in its calloused pillars.
No marble statues or Rosebuds
Or even a distant hallway echoing promise
Had we wished for.
But a storm had swept these plains.
These four walls,
Meant to not outlast months,
Had been robbed for years.
A heavy burden indeed!
***
The clouds under our eyes held experience,
Hope drifted in and around
A wreckage of bricks and paint,
Reflected in dull walls
and serpentine leaks.
Damp insides and blue layers to peel.
But we saw the world here,
unfolding in all its mystery.
And oh! What a demonstration of the world did we mount,
On flags painted with hand prints and oversized palms.
Then
What skilful melody escaped from these walls?
A tune here.
A discordant note there.
Here,
We composed such ballads of uneven proficiency,
It broke our hearts.
Made me often open the balcony door one floor high.
Hail those 2004 summers,
Those playthings sombre.
My homecoming always rests here
In these hollow openings.
Shapeshifting,
Witless and yet beautiful
in its handwritten rules.
***
All I can do now is revoke my spirits
Let it ride a pillion
to happy thoughts of yore.
Of photo albums with buck-toothed grins
Catalogues of cheerful dins.
Curtains laced with anticipation
Chaperoned by cobwebs.
Also,
These staircases have I licked and tickled
Like piano ivories.
White-washed rooms have I said goodbye to,
in my sleep.
Only to enter its premises,
put pen to paper on the same bed.
For here I rested my head on pebbles of wise thoughts and flew with the kites above,
dropping a clue.
***
Our hearts now yearn to do all of these in a familiar abode,
A home of our very own.
I rehearse my prayers
My folks keep their eyes open
Feet on the ground.
Eighty-seven days,
Two thousand and sixteen wishes aside,
We still yearn to find our own yard.
Prithvijeet Sinha‘s writings on the intersection of art, cinema and culture and especially poetry have graced several anthologies and publications in a prolific fashion. His life force resides in writing.
Featured image: Parth Savani / Unsplash