Hometown

At the back of my mind

Lies an undigested piece of thought -

That I have to leave my home tomorrow.

My bike carries me through these streets

Along the familiar scenes, pauses

At the places so known to me -

The coffeshops, bookshops, my haunts -

The libraries, the gardens, my previous office

The corners where I have hung around,watching

The milling crowds, a few faces recognized and nodded at.

Faces from my past, faces that have grown old with mine.

The city has grown, its roads wider and cleaner

Trees and corner shops have given way

To malls and multistoreyed monstrosities.

I try hard to remember what were there before

The old, tile-roofed houses replaced

By towering apartments and star hotels.

I realize what hurts me, this dull ache

In the pit of my mind -

I cannot leave this town, this is my home.

However I may dream and yearn

For the snow-clad peaks and seas of forests -

Destinations to reach and then to leave -

To return to my home, this little corner of the world.

I leave for the hills, lands strange and far away

Safe, in the thought that there is always my home

To come back at the end of the day.

I realize why ghosts linger -

Like me now, in the shadows

Of this garden of my life.

************ Balachandran V, Trivandrum, 19-12-2011