But we love rain – Diptych, by Rabeya Jalil. Image courtesy of ArtChowk Gallery.
Once the heat climbed down and clouds cooled the rally, they prayed: O forever-rain!
What no one saw is how the festoons fluttered to shreds as though drops in forever-rain.
The mailboxes don’t paint themselves red anymore. But why? Pallid in negligence they wait
That’s the answer that caught lovers unawares — no letters written — awash in forever-rain.
To the east there is the sun’s home, from where we crawl diurnally to reach our little goals
True, summer holds us captive, our fruits and farms from overflowing, until there’s forever-rain.
When we were strangers — remember? — it was bliss because I didn’t need much to imagine
And now? We don’t meet — having met a few and futile times — but discuss only a forever-rain.
Che on Lee tee shirts, Ambedkar on RSS billboards, revolution on social media trolling us by
Tell me where trees go to rot, rivers migrate, farmers commit suicide for lack of forever-rain?
Yes, of course it’s a travesty when you want to hear me sing, and my words seem to lack fire —
For love to come dropping in slowly, Navi, if not in the sun, you’ll have to soak in forever-rain.
Nabina Das is the author of two fiction books and two poetry collections. The short story collection ‘The House of Twining Roses: Stories of the Mapped and the Unmapped’ (2014) has been critically acclaimed. Her debut novel ‘Footprints in the Bajra’ (2010) was long-listed in the Vodafone Crossword Book Award 2011. Nabina’s debut poetry collection ‘Blue Vessel’ (2012) was cited as one of the best poetry books of the year while her most recent volume ‘Into the Migrant City (2013-14)’ was cited as one of the top 11 poetry reads of 2014.
