The Brimming
In the end, the streets lost their colour
And the sky ballooned like a beached whale.
No one spoke to each other or to themselves.
Words had dried like palm fronds,
And scratched against the sides of our mouths.
You left us one Winter afternoon. No one
Suspected your absence until that night,
Sitting around the campfire, we waited,
But there was no one to tell us stories
Of The Brimming. You had a voice that trembled,
As if you tapped into the vibrations
Of those ancient Times.
That winter the river froze,
That winter, Jonas lay with me,
Because you were not there to stop him.
When I emerged from my hut, my legs sore,
And my insides bruised,
All eyes were averted, none dared speak.
Even Jonas, even he went deep into
The thinning forest and stayed there for days.
In the end, there was only the glaring truth
Of my own end.
That Winter, there was no end in sight.
©Nikhil 2020
