SUN AND MYSELF
NARENDERPAL SINGH
From the second floor of Bhatkal rest house one evening as I stepped out into the gallery of my room.
good God I saw
see I did
rosy red sun
just a few yards afar.
Nothing-almost nothing
lay in between
a shack of sports
a bridge over a nala
a mound
and right beyond
was the rosy sun
in full bloom
of course, within my reach.
“I’m coming,” I shouted
I jumped the stairs
three at a time
I drowned the bridge
ran up the mound-
but before I could clutch it
the sun
had set.
And I remembered
all those morns and eves
when I raced to catch the sun.
To catch the sun
I did roam all over.
In Jaranwala, during childhood
in Lahore, during adolescence
In Basra, Damas and Cairo in Youth
Then from the hill of Saint Cloud
in Paris
in Leningrad
from the shore of the Baltic
in Los Angeles
from the nearby hillock in Orange county
and today
here.
in Bhatkal.
But alas
I failed forever.
Countless dawns and eves have I spent
to catch the sun
but
either dawn turned into day
or the evening
submerged into night.