Traveling: A poem 

I see the rush of the plane rising into the clouds 

and the concrete strongholds of the city falling below 

like a picture that must be drawered to become 

a memory. Like moving into a new home with a tinge 

of sadness. Like a get-together of loved ones reluctantly  

ending, for me to fumble into the loneliness of pillows 

that are dreamless. I put on my seatbelt, and the lady  

next to me can’t wear hers. She apologises and tells me 

she is a first-time traveller, as I help her with hers. 

I think, we are all first-time travellers of life and experience. 

Never getting started. Never finishing. Until the ultimate 

journey sets off with the vision of transmigration. 

I’ve had departures and arrivals. And tears and smiles. 

A fog always descends like a carpet over the earth 

of smugness. I feel, I am as clear-sighted as a blind child 

with a braille, reading signs with a sensory power 

that is a gift in exchange for sightlessness.  

In the night sky, the headlights and taillights 

will be witnessed by ordinary lands and oceans, 

by people who know not anything but the little roads 

of their neighbourhood, or the four corners of their home. 

Our leg space is restricted. We are crammed like  

unpicturesque photographs in albums of routine. 

And I realise, this long seeming unnecessary travel 

could be just from the middle of nowhere to the middle 

of nowhere. Until our embarking to another realm. Footloose?