Talks with Pen

THE HANGED OLD LANTERN

A mustard ball out of my Lunette windows,

Blonde dawn brushing cucumber breeze on me.

My berry blue roof; like a Dove lake frosted up above,

Casted as shadows; sheltering me.

The mauve floor; my feet tapping on its euphoria,

Clasping to heal my oozing blotches; an artwork of thorns.

I trampled down the cinnamon stairs; daffodils perching on each verges,

The moist summer warbles jauntily in me; I do not deny to listen to it.

I make my way; ahead and ahead; to seek the lustre and splendor left.

The old shop with cardboard walls,

It has been there since I had run recklessly; hankering after rainbow butterflies.

Ruby glass candies sparkling so bright; reflecting fragrant roses all around.

There he is; the vegetable man in his tattered black shirt,

He turns up every Saturday; with contrasting  Capsicums and Lemons,

Adding savours to nameless dishes in my head.

The unchanged emerald carpet sprawled at the seaside,

I scribbled my soul on it; it hums a familiarly unknown melody.

The sundown is my companion; again,

We watch the same mustard ball; dipped in amber waters.

Bidding a vowing return; split itself on us; we were half lit.

The city laid incandescing like silvers of a necklace; night coupled on its ends,

Invited me in its home; offering a cup of nostalgia, once more.

Abundant grey shafts changing patterns on my grubby sneakers,

Here I am; bearing a resemblance to the weary moon.

My mother's hanged old lantern is glowing fervently; a deep apricot tone.

I had wandered all around; tinges and lights bewitched me,

Narrating millions of stories, longing me to tarry.

How do I tell them to paralyse now ?

That I did find so much of glints and glitters; soaked my pastel fingers in them.

But none could replace my mother's hanged old lantern.

My brown orbs could gape at it in a single breath, staring longer and still.

The deep apricot light;

It got deeper and my love for it too.

I see grinning faces in it;

Faces that were gone untimely.

Faces that sent me back into buried days.

Faces in which I confined when the stars had slumbered.

Faces that kept me warmer than my childhood's blanket.

-SAIMA
(Chammi)

Why these words?
Festival of Lights, Diwali, brings in joy and gaiety in its different shades, sweets and glitters. We all have one light that constantly reminds us of all those we left, all those who left us,taking us back to where nostalgia lives. There is always a hanged old lantern in each of our lives we live in it, we breathe in it, we walk with it.