roshan - returning from long memories

Returning from long memories has taken its toll.

The hills have grown old and the grass tall,

And the house eaten away by a thousand moths.

The hundred dinners served and un-served.

Battling the plates into serving supper.

Crying to the wind to come back, and the rain to come back.

Watching the corn harvest go by, slowly shifting shape,

Until it matched the sky over to the south.

(he points and says, “it's over there.”)

To the north, there were a flock of birds,

Shifting form and sitting on a wire,

Watching the sky change colour, from red

To pink finally and then saying farewell.

Drawing the rain in mounds of sand,

Sifting through the mounds of sand,

Until there remained nothing but the sifting,

And long fingers soothing the stars.


Talking about the corn and talking about the stars,

And a little smile extracting a thousand more,

Seems reason enough for life and reason enough

Not to mend the stitch of time.

What does it matter, who throws away the bodies?

The bodies are thrown by somebody- even if it isn’t anybody.


Backwards and forward and backwards again,

The wagon of life struggles down the mountain path,

Bearing the weight of the dead and the weight of the

Ones who are alive.

And the wagon, moving slowly, moving by the weight

Of the dead and alive, seems to stop itself,

And ask itself a question-

Why carry the dead?

They are rotten and putrid, and they stain the couch.

Why carry the dead?