Time

I sit at my Ammi’s(mother’s) knee
As she winds her fingers through my hair
Encasing it in fragrant oil
An old radio, then new
Thrums out age old movie songs
So well-known that
My lips move in tune
And my fingers drum the beat
On the cold cement floor
Watching Achchi (grandma) cook
In the then stove less kitchen
Spices waft through the air
Out the doorway
A man is breaking coconuts
As Seeya (grandpa) supervises
And baby squirrels play tag
On the branches of mango trees
Whose leaves float to the ground 
On the wings of the evening breeze
And in the distance I hear
The sound of the metal gate
Unhinged, then close again
Thathi’s (Dad) come home, I smile
Getting up on my small feet, ready to run
Ammi tries to hold me back, my hair’s undone
 But the anticipation of the sweets
In his pockets too great to resist
And I break free and fly to his arms

Time moves……………. Too fast

Now I sit within my room
Penning these words
As tears threaten to fall
Through heated eyes
That still gazes through 
The windows of the past
I hear my mom cooking
In a kitchen full of appliances 
She hums a lone to music
She loves from the days of old
As I gaze outside the door 
To see, trees no more
But walls so high to hide from neighbors' sight
Dad’s paper floats down to the ground 
On the breeze created by mechanical wings
As he rests - I earn my own sweets now
Each of us trapped in thoughts of our own
We become civilized they say
So refined that we built boxes to trap our minds in
But the spirit remembers
What the souls yearn for 
A vibrant, loving and carefree past

Oh time! You simply moved too fast.