Two hours to Kottayam

I stare out the window
as we cross the border.
Brown earth slowly turns to green.

I reach for my notebook;
This is what being ‘moved to poetry’ is like.

For so long she’s hoped for my return,
She’s waited patiently,
The wait’s over, and she’s preparing now-
To warmly welcome me.

Wind-blown and wide-eyed,
Sticking out like driftwood,
A tourist in the land of his birth.

But this is a land of a billion sons,
And each minute more are born,
How will she possibly welcome me back,
When she doesn’t know I’ve been gone?

I breathe in the smells,
Coffee, cocoa, a hint of pepper,
Boats float like dead fish on water.

Coconut palms line the tracks.
Beauty, too heavy to be contained,
Falls like invisible rain.

A child waves from beside the lake.
I wave back-
He grins and tells his brother.

A tiny leaf lands on my palm.
Fragile and so full of promise,
Like the land itself.

No, no red carpet awaits me,
I’m just a face in the teeming crowd;
But she will hear about me somehow,
And for a fleeting moment she’ll be proud.

I close my eyes.
It smells like home.