It happened one afternoon.
Well-acquainted with the tired harbor,
I looked at the wordless scene
Without much desire.
In our vacant moments
As we sat together –
You annulled our silence,
When you saw a pair of parrots –
And showed them to me
With your eyes.

 

Deep-dyed in green,
Perched upon arched backs
Of patulous palms –
Their benign vision appeared to me
As an altarpiece would have!
Through the mindful quietness between us –
I heard them,
Though the parrots never spoke.
They helped to fill the constant spaces
Of my incompetent loneliness.

 

 

Mumbai
1999

                          

Geeta Chhabra

 

From the book: No Journey Ends by Geeta Chhabra