Poem : A City from My Past

This place where I have lived

for twenty years of my life,

trust me, it has a beautiful soul.

I remember it as an old man,

sitting at the corner of my street,

with eyes full of warmth and wisdom,

that follow my existence to this day.

I very often used to complain to him,

why he preferred brown and dirty soil,

when the new kids were adopting grey.

I shouted at him, for every time I fell

on the soil and got dirty while playing.

Smiling at me, he often entertained

my arguments and laughed at my tantrums.

But he never said what he wanted to,

he would just use his calloused hands,

and remove the dust from my knees.

I would go home dirty, but never hurt.

He left the corner of my street years ago,

and some new kid lives there now.

But I still find him hiding among clouds,

looking at the new kid who levelled all

that he had worked hard to preserve,

under layers and layers of grey.

He understands the world doesn’t stop,

but still when it rains and the grey hides,

he hopes to see those little paper boats,

those which soared amidst the muddy waters,

whose storms were drizzles after a downpour,

even though he knows, they sailed years ago.

I still talk to him sometimes, and I think he likes it.

We talk over a cup of tea when it rains,

and the smell of soil, although very faint,

reaches my senses and brings him back.

He tells me stories, of his prime, of all that’s changed,

and even though I have heard them a hundred times,

I never interrupt. It’s the least that I can do,

for all my tantrums that he smiled through.

                        -Sushant Kumar Das