By Tarun Durga
Metaphor happens when it happens,
Why bother when you are nine years old?
Her fork plods the peas around her plate,
She says - I have made a poem,
And sits up straight,
I listen.
She speaks of lilies exhaling
The colours of summer,
There is often the moon in her verses,
It rhymes with soon, a white balloon,
Her heart is full,
And her eyes myopic
- like mine,
Have no patience for the stars
We cannot see;
But we hear good,
So when she speaks of rain
Thumbing songs on the window pane,
I can feel it flowing down my throat.
She pauses, searching her way
Through the words,
And I remind her to chew while she thinks.
Infinity is just an enormous number,
She can stretch her arms and almost
Touch its sides,
Everything swings from never to forever
- Time is distance for her,
But it is mass for me,
On some nights I can even feel
The weight of eternity.
She is pummelling her pasta
And finds a stanza curled up
Next to the mashed potato.
Nine is big too, she insists,
Just not tall enough to reach her pajamas
On the top shelf of the cupboard,
I lift her up and there is a polar bear
Crossing snow capped commas
Into her poem,
The poem and I leave the room together
As she folds into her bed,
It's crowded on the stairs
With a bear,
The smell of lilies and wet earth.
We stop at the window.
A white balloon drifts by
From tree top to roof top,
And out of sight.
That's light-ness - says the poem,
I agree- say I.