It was your familiar greeting.
But floating across the aisles in Sainsbury's
from a distance of many years
it caught me unprepared.
I turned - to see a different person
within a body that might have been
what yours was going to become.
Only your eyes unchanged.
The customary rapture of old acquaintance:
a slight touching of cheeks, in front of
four observant little eyes -
no scent of Mitsuko now -
your hand so close to my trolley
I might’ve touched it. But no time
or thought of news in aisle 12;
amid the Household Goods.
Your body, once so swift to respond,
now looked to have its own tempo –
passion just a memory,
a door imperfectly closed.
So, with a cursory admiration
of your womb's fair-headed fruit
we part, faithlessly promising
our families' reunion.
At the checkout I recall
the open cheque you gave me once,
drawn “All my love”, signed L,
and “Not Negotiable”.
What value might it have retained
in the teeth of scoundrel time
had you not issued, between
whiles, 'instructions not to pay'?
~ Michael Maxwell Steer
But floating across the aisles in Sainsbury's
from a distance of many years
it caught me unprepared.
I turned - to see a different person
within a body that might have been
what yours was going to become.
Only your eyes unchanged.
The customary rapture of old acquaintance:
a slight touching of cheeks, in front of
four observant little eyes -
no scent of Mitsuko now -
your hand so close to my trolley
I might’ve touched it. But no time
or thought of news in aisle 12;
amid the Household Goods.
Your body, once so swift to respond,
now looked to have its own tempo –
passion just a memory,
a door imperfectly closed.
So, with a cursory admiration
of your womb's fair-headed fruit
we part, faithlessly promising
our families' reunion.
At the checkout I recall
the open cheque you gave me once,
drawn “All my love”, signed L,
and “Not Negotiable”.
What value might it have retained
in the teeth of scoundrel time
had you not issued, between
whiles, 'instructions not to pay'?
~ Michael Maxwell Steer
Badi door ki baat lagti hai. Kuch samazh nahi aati. Koi samzhaye to samzhen. Samazh bhi jayen to jaane kaise? Our door is fully closed. Even if it had been imperfectly closed, some fresh air would definitely have breezed in.
ReplyDeleteOne keeps thinking how one would react when one meets an old lost love. But i guess nothing can prepare you for it..
ReplyDeleteVery beautifully written words, which you can picturise. And it leaves the eyes moist...
A very interesting poem which succinctly brings out what most of us feel at least once in our lives. It could be any relationship or would- have -been relationship. A lover (Can anyone be an ex lover at all- once a lover always a lover isn't it- if we have genuinely loved that person) or a friend with whom we had shared a special relationship at one point of time turn out to be someone else totally different after few years.. For men the physical change might be too devastating but for all us , the change in the personality or the absence of that special attribute which attracted us in the first instance us to that person might be too much to believe.. We would all rather love to relish in the beautiful image that our mind has stored up safely in the memory and conjure up whenever we wish to recollect than to meet and discover that this special someone has dreadfully transformed into someone else..
ReplyDeleteParticularly the lines " Your body.... passion just a memory" beautifully brings out the dejection of the author in a subtle way. Even the awkwardness of the meeting and the false promises of maintaining friendship between the once -lover couple gets expressed in the " We part... Families reunion" beautifully. I particularly liked the sarcasm in those lines..
On the whole wonderful choice of a poem. However I only wonder whose chance meeting made the blogger to go into a reverie and resort to this post.. Hope he was not as dejected as the author of the poem!
We talk of past relationships.How many times we find strangers in a known relationship itself.How many of us have the time and energy to nourish a relationship. We take too many things for granted and allow the relationship to wither away and die its natural death. That way atleast a lost relationship is far better for atleast it remains evergreen in the memory, than continue to be in a relationship and kill it slowly.
ReplyDelete