Unfinished Journeys

Artwork by Amina

The decades you travelled
belonged to someone else,
bed-bugged pillows,
shadows on the wall,
ghostly faces in packed trains
on other tracks,
empty suitcases
in someone else's hall.

And suddenly, old friends
look older than before:
the girl in the mirror
has wrinkles you don't recognise.
The poet you loved has turned
into cigarette smoke,
and nobody told you
that while you were gone,
something at the centre broke.

I have put down my bags
in what seemed familiar once:
a smile in the hallway,
a room that belonged to me.
But the echoes are new,
the wind plays a different tune.
Back home at the beginning,
a voice at the window
is hushed against the moon.

The tributaries, distributaries,
have come together mid-course.
But the shells on the shoreline
are quiet and white,
and there is silence at the source.
I have come to the end and met
the beginning, running its never-ending stream
and as the clouds turn to vapour
against the red sky
somebody smothers a scream.

There are too many unfinished journeys left,
too many tangled ends.
In the hush of this familiar space
as the spiders crawl out
I must pick up my bags,
scratch off the scabs,
begin the journey again.

Menka Shivdasani is a noted Indian English poet. This poem was submitted to The Daily Star for publication.