Two wicker chairs

--

On my visits I never gifted him anything.
I knew that he needed nothing.

But last time father talked about books.

Shifting in the wicker chair, looking away, he told -

‘Those which used to please me earlier do not do so now’

He was half sad.

And I think half annoyed because they do not grow old with him.

I wish I gift him a book that will grow with him, forever and ever.

--

Time passes by
without bringing with it the change
that it had promised, or that I had misread from its cryptic scriptures.

As I wait here,
an old man in this wicker chair
staring at afternoons through the mangrove,
for Time to act as a clown and make me laugh
or as a tragic hero and make me weep sentimentally,

I hear it laugh at me
mocking me, without ever touching me.

And here I am, forever in front of it; like Tantalus.