No Sunflowers

Dear readers  -  that includes you JB,

I was a little busy scuttling between Bangalore and Tumkur, where my home is. I could not update regularly. Just found this on a scrap of paper between the pages of a dusty old book. The date on the page said I had written it during my University senior year. It brought back some memories. Thought I should share it with you.

 

On a frosty night

She sat on the stone bench

Her weary garden mocking

Missing the sunflowers

That once grew around

Hands tightly clutching her

Knees to her stomach

On a frosty night

It was the month of

Tall dry grass with spiky heads;

The month of glaciers outside

And warm ocean currents

Flowing, unseen.

She needed silence.

With a desperate murmur

She let herself open

To the chilling night

She thought – ‘Perhaps

I need some tears too’

-after all the vain talk,

Smiles and frowning

She had done up with.

To the street lamp she whispered-

‘I’ll say no to everything,

I’ve been a fool!!’

And tried to be sad.

Sometimes

tears prove to be

An extravagance.

A gust of wind blew

The endless shapes of spiky grass

Leaned, swerved and twirled

Their heads. She tried

To make something of it

Maybe it was affirmation,

Maybe cruel negation or simply

A grass dance.

Then they became all the people

She met everyday

She watched blank

Clutching her urges tight

They shook heads hissed

Glowered pointed glared

Stared, what did they say?

  Again a gust of wind blew

The spiked heads swayed

What did they say?

Silence never did speak

She felt a crack on the stone bench

With her fingers

It would grow, widen one day.

She said-“No sunflowers anymore

Only spiky grass shall prevail

No light, only streetlamps

No voices, only voice-boxes

No sun, only chill.”