Autumn: An Epitaph
Autumn: An Epitaph
Autumn comes no more to this country
But we’ve memories of the season,
Red cotton-candies inside glass boxes, and
Children running after the candy man’s bell
We invested our life’s savings.
Our neighborhood birds woke up somewhat late
Trying to adjust with the teasing chill,
We’d grown up a little by then
Feeling nostalgic beside the lonely pond
Full of water lilies.
Poverty was in its most acute form
The cropland still green, harvest days still afar,
But we had hopes of golden paddy
Of winter time, and brown oil-cakes made
From freshly ground rice flour, besides
The palm and date trees had already started
Oozing out their sugary syrup into the clay pots;
The smell of first phase jaggery
Almost made us drowsy and addictive
In our half-filled stomach.
And oh, the birds! They started migrating
Into our part of the world,
Colonized the water bodies in the deep recesses
Of the cropland, we never could go close to them
For fear of snakes, but
Every evening we stopped our play, and saw them
Flying back to their seasonal shelters
Have you ever seen a flight of those birds in autumn sky?
Those who fly very high, above,
Every evening in that wonderous season
We counted and argued over the numbers
In those flights, and felt worried about them
Who were late and desperate to join their group, lest they got lost
Or fell in some trouble and missed the night’s shelter.
My son has never counted a flight
There is nothing to count, the sky is either blazingly hot
Or bouts of torrential rain with ghastly wind
Thunder and lightning, year after year
We still have the croplands, but without birds, frogs, and snakes
We don’t even call the season by its name
If need be, we name the months…