Back in time when young was the moon

Speechless we stood in a desolate train station.

Holding hands, we’d wept for our failed love.

Pale went your face as you fought tears,

But feigned a smut in your eyes.

Shrieking horns came then a blue train and

Home it carried you where under new skies

You’d become a wife, a mom and grandma.

Stupefied, I was still watching the retreating train

That left on the rails all my love for you.

The rolling devil now looked black not blue

Showing only the color of my mourning mind.

Leafing thro my treasure trove Memory Book

Your pretty face and mien I oft look.

Of course, those sparkling elegant eyes too

Which once spoke volumes and volumes to me.

Seeing your bubblin’ dimples when you laughed

Pits and wholes up in my heart bobbed.

All invigorating kisses your rosylips gave me then

Still remain moist in my mouth, tasting like nectar.

The perfume and fragrance you’d wafted when hugged

Still remain spread in my body, making me ever balmy.

My love!

To keep you ever green in heart and soul

Fight I had to with Time, a heartless Lethean.

When waves of time brutally wreck my boat

On life’s sea I struggle like a goat.

Void and emptiness grow thick now in heart

As I wish seeing the face I’d lost to Time.

My wishes… uh.

Broken dead they go as no more you’re.

Gone you’re to the wind to become a wind.

To the moon to make her more shining;

To the gray sea to make it green.

Shocked, I feel like falling into a caldron

When your demise I know from a tabloid.

Bursting sobs I smother and breaking nerves I gather,

But pushing sorrows out of mind, there arise

A little relief in me, a cruel one at that

Relieved I’m-

As I don’t have to see you age-ravished, time-stomped.

For your photo in the ‘obit’ column is

The one you gave me long, long back

When we were in the spring of love

Breathing for each other and praying for each other.

Straddling between relief and sorrow ask my peevish mind:

“For whom should I now cry?

You or your failed live or your dead lover.

***

easwar arumugam.