A Reunion

Across the red gravel
of Rudra Court
so many years ago,
I reached out,
across a cool-showered
talcum-powdered
afternoon:
And in the dry dusty Delhi heat of May
we were friends.

Today,
from across the lush and verdant
Island of my childhood,
where rhododendrons need no spring,
to bloom on volcanic precipice,
and where the Javan mountain air
filters past bamboo groves
and refreshes
you
reach out again;
across the gaping harrowed years
of swindled sorrow
and our silence.

Today,
in the crackling coldness
of early eighty-one
in my Hamburg garden,
as hyacinth and crocus shoots
tender, green and bent lie quiet
under powder-white quilt;
shadowy images
from a distant dim-lit past
come forth
and we promise,
'never remain out of touch again'.