THE FOLLOWING POEM WAS SELECTED IN WINGWORD POETRY PRIZE 2023 LONGLIST.
Exactly five years ago
I lived in a city of dreams-
the city of my struggles,
quite an imposing brand you'd say
but apt for a girl in mid-twenties.
I crawled against my inertia to move,
dragged outside every day.
At exactly half past eight
with roads being swept
I'd hop on a bus to work
recognize every face in there
perhaps I seemed mundane to them too.
I tried to look for novel pictures
relaxing on a window seat
peeping out to find familiar traces.
Just before a lazy traffic signal
the bus screeched to a halt,
cars groaning more than their owners,
the cacophony seemed unbearable.
A wearied building giggled
at the opposite end and
my eyes paused at a window
marked by mauve dahlias
spraying hope on me.
Their owner, a man
strumming his grey years
watering them with tenderness
glanced once or twice at me
as if protecting his darling dahlias.
I laughed and moved on
forgetting them again.
Then at exactly half past six,
with wearied gleam of dusk
the bus sighed at the same stop.
The dahlias, lilac in shades
proudly beamed with joy.
The owner reading next to them
caught me red-handed
staring at his dahlias
then laughed at
my sheepish grin and waved.
I waved back to the gentle old man
and this became our routine
for the next four years.
On melancholic days
he waved them at me
in joyous moments
he greeted me with a smile.
Then my struggles in that city
came to an end
I moved to another place
forgetting that trend.
This year I visited someone nearby-
the building devoid of laughter
dilapidated with charcoal shades
had been ablaze last year
now abandoned with memories.
I hopped on the same bus
saw the broken window
from where they used to wave at me.
A memoir of my diary in days of vain
now symbolized by a forgotten windowpane,
but I noticed something else
a tendril with a single mauve dahlia
creeping from a moist wall
reaching the old man's broken windowpane.
Perhaps in that corner remained
a fragment of the frayed phases in my journey.