Sestina for Sujata
I tried calling but you didn’t pick up –
It’s an ordinary sort of day –
Arjun is learning Hindi letters,
Two languages colliding in his head.
Taxes and grading swallow up the hours
As March reluctantly draws to a close.
Now that emails have supplanted letters
We could write daily but contingent day
Is night for you, too far ahead to catch up –
Too easy and too hard to hold you close
As I succumb to the demanding hours,
Compelled to conversations in my head.
Although perhaps once more another day
You’ll drive across town to pick me up,
How many times before the windows close,
Marking off the last allotted hours,
Narrowing the road that lies ahead,
Scripting in dust the final letter?
Cell phones and texts bring the distant close;
Technologies proliferating up
The ante, yet sun to sun the day
Still measures life; eyes still scan letters
In the same time, revolve them in the head
Over the same seconds, minutes, hours.
Now between chores I’ve spent a few hours
On this curious exercise to head
Off, perhaps, detritus – bills and letters
That cumulate on any given day,
Drag it to an undistinguished close,
All my energies quite using up.
March concluding, may the way ahead
Be smooth, dear one, winding slowly up-
Ward, draw the distant and the closer close,
Let both written and unwritten letters
Reach you, through gently unfolding hours
Beyond the first and last month’s final day.
Look, this became a letter for your birthday,
Counting out the hours that lie ahead,
Spell to conjure closeness, winding up.
Ruth Vanita divides her time between New Delhi and Montana. She is the author of several books, including A Play of Light: Selected Poems and is preparing her second collection. Find out more about Ruth here.