A Memory Unlived

 

 

Haven’t I met you before,

From across a closed door?

In a dream,

Kind of forgotten?

In a verse still to be written?

In a note

Not yet sung?

In a word that hung

On my lips, unsaid

Or patiently sat

In a book I haven’t read?

In the footsteps

That tread

In a memory unlived?

In the smoke of a fire

Which never was lit?

In a scent that faded

Ere I even smelt it?

In a touch so soft

Only my heart

Ever felt it?

In a cloud

That sailed unseen?

In a sigh, unsighed

Of what-could-have-been?

I haven’t met you, are you sure?

In a life never lived before?

 

Note: There is something hauntingly romantic about old ruins. And when these are situated in a village which is supposed to be the ‘most haunted place in India’, one’s imagination runs wild. A memory – glimpse of a veil, a whiff of a scent, a touch of the breeze – the birth of a poem, dedicated to Bhangarh, a small village in Alwar District in Rajasthan.