I
The day he dies
The rain murmurs on glass
Through night and day,
Like apocalypse is today, now
It courses down the eaves at 3.30 a.m.
At 4.30 a.m. it’s still trickling
In the hospital courtyard
In the hospital courtyard
Thinly
Wetly
Damply
Hungrily
Silently.
At home
In the dark
At home
In the dark
We pause to look at the sky
And murmur, “It’ll never end.”
“The rain will take us as did father.”
"Will electricity come?"
"Will electricity come?"
We are wondering whether
The food will last
The oil lamp will burn till midnight
Till we sleep the wearied sleep
Of farmers and day labourers
Of those days
Of those days
When only the rich had electricity.
And in the morning
We wake up in a daze
To hear the rain still pounding
Pitting the stones
Drilling holes into roads
Fearing the worst
The swirling deaths
Washed out homes
That came calling on July 26
The day the skies wept.
II
Once a boy
Skinny
Unprepared
Unaware
Hanging on to straws
Bibliophile
Skinny
Unprepared
Unaware
Hanging on to straws
Bibliophile
Who, when a rainy symphony plays,
With open book on knees,
Reads “Paradise Lost,”
And dreams of poetic fame
Lost in a haze of innocence
Unprepared
Docile
Ingenuous
Rebellious
Handsome
Ugly
Sensual
Unrefined
Uncouth.
“Will he ever survive this world?”
“Look at him, he is so silent.”
“Why is he so different?”
“How has he become thus?”
They ask
The ones who fail to prepare him
With their love.
The ones who fail to prepare him
With their love.
III
The dream of trophy girls is now
The tattered cloth of a mendicant,
Stained and threadbare,
Threatening to rend
At the most delicate touch
As rain comes down
On hills and weaving coconut palms
Marble monuments, their treasures plundered.
And the sun-shielded glass
In a city a thousand kilometres away
In a city a thousand kilometres away
Reeking of human enslavement
Nomenclature-ed
Numbered
Synergised
Compartmentalised
Ergonomised
Promoted
Demoted
Transferred
Filed
Forgotten.
The rain stops
11.30 a.m.
Just as the pounding in the brain
Ceases.
Make tea
Drink cupful of heat
Satiation
Lay down to rest
Sleep the tired sleep of the lazy
Wake worn out to rain pounding again
Rivulets on glass
Head aching from countless
Confusing dreams.
IV
When we go to fetch his body
From the morgue
From the morgue
The rain comes so thick
That the river Pampa changes course
Marooning the house
He built
Our abode
Of parsimonious money
He made from the pain of my hunger
The house of our deprivation.
As the flotsam recedes
Leaving the ground slushy
In the 1.30 p.m. rain
He is interred
At the family church
At the family church
At the family graveyard
When the bell tolls mournfully
When the bell tolls mournfully
After the priests and assemblage
Chants
Prays
Sings
Mumbles
Weeps
Weeps
Dropping mud on his coffin.
He must have heard
The thudding
Soil and stone
Soil and stone
Rain
On palm trees
The wind sighing in leaves
The susurration
Of tiny rivulets
Into his new abode.
Felt the wasting
Of a body
Dissipated
Drowned in grief
Alone
Soil to Soil
Earth to Earth
Dreams having flown
In the 4.30 p.m. rain.
Alone
Soil to Soil
Earth to Earth
Dreams having flown
In the 4.30 p.m. rain.
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