Do you remember
that rainy day?
It began with yellow sunshine,
that evening,
and ended with rain.
You rode your bicycle beside me,
some distance apart,
but our shadows, for some reason,
moved along side us, entwined,
as the sky darkened
and the dust died away
the boundless rain.
We sheltered from the rain
in a hut nearby, and wiped our faces;
our hands were dripping
Do you remember
that rainy day?
Sodden with rain, the ink running,
our lecture notes
were never to be re-written.
Hurtling through palmyra palms,
beating down the portia leaves
the wind that day joined the very sea.
And how it rained!
You beside me,
a dampness filling the hut.
Through the dense, sobbing darkness of the rain
in a single line, lightning
wanders the sky, vanishes.
A lightning-streak, you exclaim,
but it's gone when I look again.
As we wait for the next one,
thunder roars.
Upon your rain-streaked face
a single strand of wet hair
falls to your neck;
a lamb gone astray.
The rain slows to a steady drizzle;
we return to our journey
along the street.
Human devils will stare at as
their gaze falling like arrows
like spears piercing through us.
Yet the street shatters and falls away
when we are beside each other.
Once more, the drizzle;
you and I, side by side, sheltered
beneath the darkness of rain-clouds.
Do you remember
that rainy day?
****
courtesy : Kuppli Padma
