Skip to main content

Faraway

Like a rose without water I will age
deep vermillion and scentless.
Your love I will keep like white envelopes from the past
unopened
under my sandal-scented bed.

It is not memories that the mention of your name reminds.
But a whole universe
that I sometimes see when I sit and watch
snow melt outside my window.

Two drops of jasmine oil
and two words later
I remind myself this is only a poem
and you distant, like a faraway place I want to visit.
And say goodbye once again.

Comments

Amitesh said…
Drenched in beauty and love. Touches me. However, I do not quite agree with whatever sense it makes to me.
Wow. There is mystery in your words. There is anguish. There is nostalgia.And there are visual you are forced to imagine - and feelings you are forced to deliberate. A very beautiful poem. The sort of poem, which with some haunting guitar work, could be a beautiful song. :)
Proma said…
Animesh, thanks for reading. This poem is the kind which could be interpreted in innumerous ways. For it is not meant to capture anything. I am curious though how different readers interpreted.
Proma said…
fiCUs, thanks for the words. You are a guitarist and musician. Go ahead, put music into it :)
.amanda. said…
I respectfully disagree, there isn't any way that a poem can capture "nothing" because it comes from your heart. If that were so it wouldn't have any meaning. But the beautiful thing about poetry (and art in general) is painting a picture with your experience that touches other people, and which they can see themselves in.... and this poem does that, it is very honest and I can totally feel it myself. Great.
Proma said…
@Amanda
thanks for reading. what I meant by not *capturing* is that it does not try to implant a meaning on the minds of the reader. However as you say, that is quite inevitable. The meaning lies between and beyond the words, as if it were a painting that looks different when you look at it. In that sense this one is different from a few of my previous poems (on poverty, changing times and recession).

Thanks for reading !
Amitesh said…
You write at one place "Your love I will keep like white envelopes from the past
unopened
under my sandal-scented bed".

The thought occured to me that you can not keep anybody's love as love i feel is always virgin, new , dangerous. Maybe we understand the word differently.
Proma said…
Thanks for the comment Animesh. I think I kind of understand when you say that love cannot be "kept" as a keepsake. It all depends as we see the world as you say.
But let me get back to those lines where I say that - "Like white envelopes from the past" and "Unopened" and "Under my sandal-scented bed". These words emphasize that the love that one keeps is the one they are scared to confront, at the same time afraid to give away completely. "Under the sandal-scented bed" is where they stay.

Also, love can be many types and here I had in mind a particular kind where I lost the person because of something we couldn't control - there was sacrifice. And when there is sacrifice, the aftermath is different from like say, where you break up after a fight.
Amitesh said…
I kind of understand what these words conveyed. They were really pregnant. I just think i should not get into their meaning too much. I think they are just too good to be subjected to analysis. After all it is poetry.
Anonymous said…
I love u'r poem Proma, specially now when Freddy is leaving this weekend for 4 weeks.
It's nostalgic.
Proma said…
Thank you Geraldine :) I am happy to hear that the poem relates to your feelings for your love.
Anonymous said…
Proma,

This is a very beautiful poem, but why the pessimissm? "Like a rose without water I will age..."?

This poem seems to depict the feelings of a healed, or a healing wound, rather than a raw one. I don't see flesh and blood here. There's no raw pain, but a scar, that lingering sweet pain when you press on the scar, but don't know where the pain is coming from. The kind of pain you enjoy, so you feel like pressing on the
scar again and again...

The expression of feelings is great. But why the pessimissm? Life is sweet. If anything, the "healed pain" of the wound caused by love will only make life sweeter, more meaningful and the rose more beatiful. And it's not worth to make a beautiful rose age without water... when there is water in the world...

Just my thoughts...

Great poem!
Proma said…
Thank you for reading "Friend".

I do not think there is pessimism in this poem. There is a sense of loss, yes. There are a few analogies that may seem endless and fatal, but in poetry, we say what we feel at the moment. Especially in poems about lost love.

Well there is a poet in me and this is how she expresses. But the poet in me is not the only me in me.
Anonymous said…
Beauty, Mystery, Love and Pain blended perfectly. Its short enough to make this a shot you'd like to drink up when its one of those days you feel like you missing something even though you 'think' you have it all.
Happenstance that I bumped into your blog.
I'll read a few more when I find time.
Ta.
Proma said…
Thank you Rohith for reading and the wonderful words about the poem.
Vivek Sharma said…
I am not sure why I haven't visited your page in so many months. But I am so happy to read these poems (and I will return to read stories for sure).

You have come a long way Proma, compared to the ones I had seen a couple of years back. Two drops of Jasmine Oil... can smell and feel them!

This is great:) Keep the poetry flowing, and email me each one that you write. Good work, my friend!
Proma said…
Thanks Vivek ! I am happy to have readers like you and for your constructive criticism and encouragement over the years. Its hard to find readers like you.
Andrew said…
Very well paced, with great imagery.
I do some poetry at http://lateblue.blogspot.com/
Anunoy Samanta said…
really nice!
wlcm 2 my blog.... kp bloggin... see u....

Popular posts from this blog

First Love makes you a worse person. (So go look for the second one to fix that!)

It has been twenty years since you left. Twenty years that I have not seen you. Honest to God, I don’t completely remember your face now. Only that smile, those hazel eyes, and your green striped shirt that later, someone stole from your clothesline on a summer afternoon. That summer remember, we stole mangoes from whichever garden we could, and attempted to cook chutney. And the aftermath – burnt coils of the electric heater and a blackened saucepan. I wonder why even after all these years, a gentle sprinkle of your memories, unleashes a strong flow of emotions that occupy those corners of my mind that normally don’t exist in my everyday life. I don’t like it. I don’t like that you come so close to me but only in a dream. I can neither touch you nor make you go away. You tease me like a freshly popped champagne bottle spilling out froth. That froth that burns my fingertips, but never wets them enough. And slowly, precipitates away into nothing. You are not “nothing” in my life. Y

The Compromise (Final Part)

June 21st 2007 5:40pm Savannah, GA Shyla’s little ranch home was tucked away behind the row of weeping willows. More dreary looking houses and an abandoned truck rusting by the street, made the scenery look even sadder. It was hard to imagine that inside one of those old withdrawn houses, a newborn was trying to see the world with twinkle eyes in all amazement. Eric had parked on the street and was now walking towards the little ranch home. He had not noticed the adjoining houses, nor that the driveway ended into a worm-infested narrow mud pathway leading towards the house. He could see nothing, as his insides couldn ’t bear another iota of sensory impulse. Or perhaps, he, standing at this moment, still and alone, on grounds completely alien, was shielded from everything outside of his own chosen senses. He felt strangely calm, as if he had just come walking out alive from the dead. As he stood in front of the large wooden door now, loud heartbeats thumped against his ringing hea