By Farhan Ahmed
They spoke of a golden ghat,
Like a bridge stretched across
The shadowed years.
‘Step forward, and smile’, came their solemn command,
‘Say cheese – let it quell all your fears’.
Beneath my weight, the limbs tussle;
As I flip through the monochromatic album,
The air is a ghostly hollow sigh.
What peeks back: I, my father and mum
But no fields of joy, no shining shores,
The golden ghat – now grey
And just a watchful quiet sky.
They spoke of wonders; of worlds withheld,
And yet all I see are shards of decay.
The ropes are torn with time’s trek;
A path that seamlessly fades to the grey.
Is this the bridge to the earlier dreams deferred,
Like the ones spoken of by Langston Hughes?
Its planks are masking the voiceless void;
The ache of distant, visible are only the rusty rues.
Nostalgia, they call this sombre span,
A thread stretched thin across the years.
Yet what is it but a tranquillity’s trespasser?
A gentle flowing river of silent tears.
I cross that bridge alone, my steps suspecting,
While the fortunate ones fill the biting breeze.
Their bridges gleam; mine’s a miserable one,
A mere rubble of what the tape of the past had run.
Does this bridge vindicate my fading past,
Or drag it from the natural grave; grovelling all the way,
Will it cradle me in an empath’s embrace,
Or tie me down like a dreadful memory in the month of May?
Will I find peace in the farthest fold of the photograph,
If I turn back, will the heavens scorn and have the last laugh,
Dear bridge, the ashes & losses perennially linger;
Why do you crumble, and stretch; why do you twist so?
Was I ever supposed to tread carefully or merely mingle,
Or are you just like me, a being made of merely woe?
Every step I take, the doubt deepens,
A blister that swells under my silent stride.
On that golden bridge of memories
Am I the father of a vision unborn?
Not all bridges are meant for travellers,
Look at my spirit- As it’s meant – It only wavers.
By Farhan Ahmed
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