What bridges this hour? And what marks the boundaries between light and dark? Suspended between day and night this hour stands- part of both worlds and neither. Apart from all else, it hangs like a snatch of music confined forever to this space and hour, yet flowing wild and free within it. Waiting like a song to be plucked out of the sky- if only my hands could reach, if only my words would hold. But I don't even try, and the hour wraps itself around softly around me.
This is no place to dream of beauty- An ancient terrace, a crowded neighbourhood in a crowded city. The view- Broken tile and glass, piles of cement and an ancient commode. Just below are a neighbour's kitchen and bedrooms- All the sounds and smells of a family coming home to dinner fill this space. Yet something holds me up here-disconnected, restless and troubled, trying to put words to my thoughts.
And I don't look down at all. Across the street are a few trees clothed in grey, settling under their covers of birds for the night. Further away- a whole world of green turned grey-tinged-with-red. And in the distance, the cries of a peacock and a pair of lapwings.
Twilight. Day flying out on the dark wings of crows, pigeons crying hoarse farewells, and night stepping softly in, soundless except for the flutter of a stray bat.
All colours fade to black. All light turns dark. And long after sunset I stand here, with the sky screaming night, and my mother screaming dinner. And now, hours later, this-
Maybe there never was a need for a bridge. The span of a bird's wing closing day, and the flutter of the bat unfurling the night are all that the hour needed. My mind wants to label it and hold it and girdle it with a ring of words, but the hour still stands free.
As I do, when I stop chaining thoughts and feeling with words and labels. Complete and whole, all spirits blend if I let them- the one that soars with the birds, and the one that comes in to dinner with the family.
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