Mātr̥bhūmi

The kitchen will always be blue, 

the only open area here-

on your window, there will be blue paper-planes

still, shaken by the breeze that arrives 

unexpectedly. There are cats in your dreams 

cats on the walls, only the cheshire seems to be smiling

pointing to the direction of the old pathway in the wood

pinned to the wall

we eat cereal in Tupperware, 

you apologize for the hospitality 

as we look over the swans 

breeding new hatches for the season 

they will live here, over the pond we keep 

calling a lake, for lack of better words 

in second tongues- only we will fly

and call it a return

you and I are from other soil

we know it, little do people know

 the blessing of not eating 

out of Tupperware, of sleeping in self owned beds

there are times we borrow

grounds, kitchens

blue that will term us visitors 

each time we return

I will go back, you tell me

I am meant to be, I answer you

even when you don't ask anything

you don't need the questioning. 

The paper-planes are blue, 

this kitchen is blue 

we are here watching soft rain 

in a week we will be gone 

you to the directions of Matrbhumi, 

and I to my Watan, 

these are the motherlands 

that we get to ourselves

no Tupperwares or make-shift tongues.


Matrbhumi: Bengali for motherland.
Watan: Arabic for homeland. 

This poem is for my Bengali friend S. B.