Come, sit awhile,
On this patch of grass,
This corner of the earth,
That is ours alone,
Till we go our separate ways.

Let me rest in your arms,
In my mouth a blade of grass,
Your hair a curtain
Sheltering me from the world,
Your fingers easing the frowns
That burrow deeper in my forehead
With each passing day.

Let us not remember,
The lengthening shadows in my father's face,
My mother's pinched and wrinkled skin,
The worries that like an insidious worm
Are eroding their life away,
My poetry collection that I sold
To apply for the last job interview.

Let us also try and forget
That your father no longer speaks to you,
Your sister looks at you with accusing eyes,
Your mother called you a whore last night,
That you are now a stranger in your home,
Gray strands in your hair no longer a rarity,
That you will be thirty in a month's time.

There will be time enough to remember,
Once evening dies and we part our ways,
Instead, let us, for now,
Look into each other's eyes and be content
That the grass below is green still,
The sky above still daylight blue,
That the love that I see in your eyes,
And the dreams that you see in mine,
Are not an illusion just yet.

Anand Madhukar