Letters in These Times

I could write to you
about an ailing relationship
between two countries,
two friends and
two lovers,
and tell you how they
hinge on a silk thread
that is hard to see
even in bright light
that stuns the eyes;
inspite of receiving taxes
encouragement,
and thoughtful gifts
how the backbone
is stiff from the damp
of their minds
and how the distances
seem so less;
just a border
a phone call
or a hug and yet,
yet they’re insurmountable.
Hope steals glances,
shyly at first and then slyly later
and then shamefully stays
in the corner waiting to be
summoned or waiting to be
done without.
Treaties are signed,
assurances given,
promises made,
and then each one retreats
to the bosom of
their comfort zones and
everything is forgotten.
There is blood,
maiming,
and heartache;
one that the
theists, agnosts and atheists
can’t mend.

There is no sunrise that brings rays
one can fill their eyes with;
even the sun waits for half an hour
before waking
the country,
the longing friend,
and the lover;
and then one thinks how can
they ever come to a truce
and walk hand-in-hand
when even nature
doesn’t take on them together
at once.

I do pick the keys
from the lock-shaped keyholder
and open a room that has
stayed shut and is damp
from the rain that is sent,
and I sit down to write to you
of an ailing relationship
and wonder if you’d rather
like to read about how the
window in the room
opens to a tamarind tree
we played under and
picked the bounty
it shed for us when it was full.
I wonder if I’d rather
write about the kite
that is still stuck on its
branches like it is in
my memory and I wonder
if I’d rather write
about the mat
in the forgotten cupboard
that we used
to sleep under the tamarind tree
in the afternoons.

Should I talk of
forgotten childhoods or
of forgotten humanity, friendships and love?
I sit and wonder
and then I look in the distance,
put the paper back in the drawer,
the ink back in the cupboard and
pick up the key to lock the
room again.

When peace prevails, I think.
When peace prevails, I shall write to you.