Sestina for Sujata<\/strong><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
I tried calling but you didn\u2019t pick up –<\/p>\n
It\u2019s an ordinary sort of day –<\/p>\n
Arjun is learning Hindi letters,<\/p>\n
Two languages colliding in his head.<\/p>\n
Taxes and grading swallow up the hours<\/p>\n
As March reluctantly draws to a close.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Now that emails have supplanted letters<\/p>\n
We could write daily but contingent day<\/p>\n
Is night for you, too far ahead to catch up \u2013<\/p>\n
Too easy and too hard to hold you close<\/p>\n
As I succumb to the demanding hours,<\/p>\n
Compelled to conversations in my head.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Although perhaps once more another day<\/p>\n
You\u2019ll drive across town to pick me up,<\/p>\n
How many times before the windows close,<\/p>\n
Marking off the last allotted hours,<\/p>\n
Narrowing the road that lies ahead,<\/p>\n
Scripting in dust the final letter?<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Cell phones and texts bring the distant close;<\/p>\n
Technologies proliferating up<\/p>\n
The ante, yet sun to sun the day<\/p>\n
Still measures life; eyes still scan letters<\/p>\n
In the same time, revolve them in the head<\/p>\n
Over the same seconds, minutes, hours.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Now between chores I\u2019ve spent a few hours<\/p>\n
On this curious exercise to head<\/p>\n
Off, perhaps, detritus \u2013 bills and letters<\/p>\n
That cumulate on any given day,<\/p>\n
Drag it to an undistinguished close,<\/p>\n
All my energies quite using up.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
March concluding, may the way ahead<\/p>\n
Be smooth, dear one, winding slowly up-<\/p>\n
Ward, draw the distant and the closer close,<\/p>\n
Let both written and unwritten letters<\/p>\n
Reach you, through gently unfolding hours<\/p>\n
Beyond the first and last month\u2019s final day.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Look, this became a letter for your birthday,<\/p>\n
Counting out the hours that lie ahead,<\/p>\n
Spell to conjure closeness, winding up.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Ruth Vanita<\/strong> divides her time between New Delhi and Montana. She is the author of several books, including A Play of Light: Selected Poems<\/em> and is preparing her second collection. Find out more about Ruth here.
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