UNDYING LOVE

             

                          

                                           

                                                    i

I saw her when I was ten and she five,

Her curls took my cough away;

Her eyes were a walk in the clouds

Her smile had the innocence of time.

                                        She extended her hands of friendship,

I felt like I won a battle then;

We shared the jelly from my plate,

Everyone said the party was great, I said it was the best.

 ii

She grew up, so did I;

No more did she accompanied me for butterfly chase,

No more did she tie her hair in pony;

She was shyer than the evening sun.

I said why she was so different from what she was;

The reply ran, “I am sixteen, should be sweet, should be smart.”

Then came the day when she had to leave the town,

She hugged me and said, “How do tears look in my eyes?”

I stammered, “Like pearl in an oyster’s bed.”

                                                           iii

I got a small job, and a small house for myself, tried hard to settle down,

But the laughter and the memories of her never left me;

I knelt to the Heaven to make her pass my way,

Then the day came like snow during summers.

She was twenty-eight; she had a ring on her finger;

Her groom to be looked like a dream made for her,

She told me to be there for the wedding;

I bite my lips and said, “If only you share a jelly with me.”

iv

Twenty years went by after the wedding,

I was living my life like an old confirm bachelor, with a dog and some old files;

Then there was a knock at the door, the guest was someone I had known,

She had ripened like an autumn fruit, she looked good as always.

Learned that she was a widow now, with no children,

Life had been unkind to her but she had no complaints;

Then she looked at me and asked, “Never brought flowers for a woman?”

I replied, “The only woman I ever loved was herself a bouquet of flowers.”

 v

When she rose up to go, the moon peeped at us from the window,

I wanted her to stay, then and forever;

So I caught hold of her hand, but words were like a drought,

She looked deep into my eyes, must have seen my soul;

 I felt what I felt when I was ten as she said, “What took you so long?”

And all I know was between now and then I love her, and will do so.

*The edited version of this poem can be found in Ayangti Longkumer's Magic Quill.