Rain and the City: Eulogy to a Walk some Twenty Monsoons Ago

In the obtuse bend of time
I walk the lonely city lights
And each step keeps me moving,
Till I see beyond the mirage
Of nothingness beyond the heights
Of unknown troubles of noisy horns;
And the calm melody of the storm;
And drowsy lamplights,
And the rain on the soft shadows of life,
All too wet in the monsoon,
Till the burning ache of the city
Humbles the timeless guide,
The last of the desperate travellers,
Who would bind each place
With a circle of time,
As if Harrington street
Is no more a sensation of past,
Or a fabled road,
When the music fades
After a few quick steps
And she turns around
The wet fields of Queens Way,
And the last note of Mozart,
Feels soft yet hostile
In the last glades of May,
And before the cemetery of Park Street
When it shines in the darkest moon,
I see the clouds of anxiety—
Nay, the rain couldn’t cure;
And her heavy heart
Would beat no more
With the count of stars
In the silent mooniverse
Of dead lamplights
And tired rain, —
I wield the heart of the city
In dazzling poetry:
“That I might drink
and leave the world unseen /
And with thee fade away
Into the forest dim”,
Like in another time,
In the pangs of parting monsoon,
Miles away from Dalhousie square,
I see the fleeting Komagata Maru
From a demolished fort
Beyond the veils
Of grainy streetlights,
A strange escape into a place
Of cold and happy seasons,
And the wet town’d streets,
Where the dirt is fresh
With her footsteps;
And her inaudible heartbeats;
And her humming secret melodies,
Are no less than a healing brook,
Where I could walk miles with her
To a timeless truth,
But this short absence of time
Beyond the lines of poetry,
All would vapourise,
Like the charmed drops of rain
Into a sudden midnight hour,
In the blast of neon lights
A quarter of a mile from the Queens Way
The city closes by a dying breath.

Swapnil Saha

Completed MA in English, currently pursuing PhD from IIT Hyderabad. When I am not studying, I like watching movies, anime or playing video games