twenty one days
it feels like a line from an apologetic poem
or an aphorism
for the days the sun will not come out
or a line from Byron’s apocalyptic poem
the days and nights if divided
would be 10.5 each
504 hours
30240 minutes
1814400 seconds
so Time is measured
in the ‘slaying of clocks’
‘Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks, …’
but what of love
what of this veil
of contentment
this garb of exasperation
‘challo phir se aik baar ajnabi ban jaa.ain’
‘ Love alters not with his brief hours and weeks,…’
but how would you know
who measures absences
it feels like a cold winter sun
or a hot summer day
when you look for shade
everywhere
i want to hide from your clocks
and measuring enduring lacking
comparing looking world
and hide in my dark world
of
882.668647 days
of never telling you
i burnt myself for 1271042.85 minutes
of seeing you happy
the old post office brings no letters for me anymore
and I wait for none
too
that gaandá ki kiyaari
is full bloom again
despite the odd winters we had
and you never came
the tree withered
the lake grew silent
and I grew old
sitting by my bay window
i count the number of bees that
steal my nectar
hiding themselves in the yellow
gaandá thinking i do not
see them
‘Time is dead as long as it is being clicked off by little
wheels; only when the clock stops does time come to life.’
i pause to see yet another flower lose
its essence
and happily give its life away…
‘challo phir aik baar ajnabi ban jaain’
{sound and fury/Faulkner. sonnet 116/w.shakespeare. sahir ludhianvi}
