I do not know how to love you.
I do not know how to tempt you
To stay.

Enjoy the colours of fall, you say?
But they come only to prepare us for
The winters of our lives.

Among these ancient stones
Under this wet sky
You say you are
Leaving.

You are distant,
I can see you are
Already gone.

I will wait for you at the
Ends of our lives.

When you left
You did not tell me how long
I must carry in my heart
These stones.

Someday would you write me a letter
And leave it in the postbox (that little red one, along the way)
So that on some autumn afternoon
I can unfold it among the graves and
Read the things we
Could not say?

Around me the cherry blossoms
Do not know that
Without you this is
A false spring.

Excerpted with permission from The Weeds That Grow In Cemeteries, Nirmal Ghosh, Aleph Book Company.

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