VAGABOND

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My verses were a population of vagabonds,
Moving along the painful distance ...
Separating my heart from yours.
The heartbreak that you sometimes tore me with,
Were the sudden raids in the middle of the night;
Driving them away to clear the land.
Those tongue splitting words
That you hurled in rage
Were vehicles leading the raids--
Smashing through their huts,
Sweeping clean their existence,
Grinding honesty to dust.
Still,
The vagabonds that they are,
Kept moving from one smashed
Land to another--
Dreaming of a new shelter,
Hoping of one permanent home
Where they could knit
Their dreams and tomorrows into one
Without being chased away.

And it was only when you
Held ajar the doors of your heart;
That my verses,
Those vagabonds,
Had their lonely wandering
Finally find a peaceful night's slumber.

© Sobhan Pramanik
January 2016