Poet : Manju Prasannan Pillai

The body has been sloughed off

whittled down

to nothing

A whole season of loss

looks you in the face

The moon is fading too

Half eaten, gibbous

Almost gone.

These old tiles

are from the roof

dismantled to let 

the sky in

Death is so meticulous in its pickings

The body, bones

and then the debris

of who you  are 

Shards of your presence

Strewn around in the wind

All the days

you lived through

gutted to dark voids

an extinguished flame

gaping vacuously

mocking you 

with its indifference

Time is a ruthless eye

its callous glare

shines upon your nothingness

wiped clean, your absence is clear and pure

and you have nothing to say, not  even when the voices of the world rise

and fly away

with your song 

No one lives here anymore
It has been a while

the lilies have turned

themselves into wreathes

It is obvious

that you have gently untravelled

come undone

Tasting the soot

of the spent stars,

the residue is who you are now

You mourn the loss

of things unseen

you, who once turned sap into translucent jewels,

titrated drops of green emerald

from thin veined leaves,

you are your own memory now.

All around 

flowers ignite

while you are fading

into the smoky dusk

Your gaze

rising and ebbing

like a flock of birds

going home

to roost.

Meandering in and out

of a languorous dream

you weave a shroud

of things muslin most

On cloud grey evenings

The wind knocks at your door

No one answers.

It is clear to you

that no one

lives here any more.