h a n d s.

brown, holding an orange flower
between two fingers
and the other, holding
an incense stick that gave the
shillong air, a touch of the south.
your hands, when i touched for the
first time that day, reminded me
of an old bent willow tree that
i'd seen in bodh gaya.
lines- coarse, hard, etched deep
into your skin almost as if
every year that you had lived
your hands had been the only
witness of them.  witness to,
some eight decades of hills, and
streams that run down to cup at
your hands.
and some lesser years, of ganja
seven children, a dead lover,
wrinkled memories, wrinkled clothes
and wrinkled skin.    
these hands, i know
have caressed several of us
who have stopped at your inn
for a night and sat by you-
a bottle of rum, a smouldering fire
and your stories. to me, you told a story
of a time when a man from across the
seas came for a week and said
he would hold your hand to take
you away, to a far far land.  you
of course knew, that fairytales were
just that, fairytales. and so these hands
some fifty years later were not holding
a strong, white hand but were tying
the hair on the head of a nineteen year old
girl who left you with promises of
coming back to you by the fire with
a glass of rum.  you, of course knew
that fairytales...
now, some years later sitting in place
that would laugh at stories of
hills and hands, i wonder
where are you ?
those brown hands that could
lovingly
sweep across hills, rivers and
a million dreams-
do they still breathe ? do they
at night light up a joint, and
talk to strangers as if they were
born to tell stories ?
your hands, when i first saw them
reminded me of an old willow in
bodh gaya.