Line Prompt
#PoetsInc.
Fleeting memories
The day dies,
Slipping quietly into the pool of eternity.
Can I salvage a past moment?
A myriad shades attached to its vibrancy
Have paled. Alas! Now it’s tinted
In monochromatic hues of memory.
Stowed away in my closet-like mind,
Stacked carefully, it hangs limply
To be retrieved in a blinding spell
Of nostalgia from the repository.
How Time’s aslant light discolors
The jealously guarded fragments of past,
Corroding the fabric of memory.
In trinkets, heirlooms, cherished jewellery,
Hidden in the cool interiors of objet d’ art
I try to pick up pieces of fantasy,
From yarns spun in leisure
Perhaps by my chignoned
Lavender-scented granny
With her crow feet eyes sparkling joyously;
Or is it the fairy tale moment
When mother bends down to work
On her tapestry? May be it’s my father
Racing with his golden spaniel
Who embraces him gleefully.
Or it’s a frozen moment at the periphery
Albeit tucked away,
It re-emerges suddenly.
This fragment I run away from
Is my shadow, dark and gloomy,
Uncovering a naked me.
I tear myself from me
And my shadow that haunts me.
Catching me unawares,
It alarmingly remains with me.
© Mumtaz Khorakiwala
