Unchanged...

'The town has changed...a lot...'
She said the first thing
Sitting on the grass
Looking around...
The towers were being erected
A few yards away...
Tall towers posing as threats
To the sky...
Over which a few birds at that moment fly
As if like a series of kites...
Reddened by the dying light
To the distant halo of the sun
Where afternoon to the evening will eventually turn...

I said nothing...
For me the change was slow and creeping
As if I am very much part of it...
So I did silently sit...
Waiting for more remarks and comments
That expectedly from her mouth should lend
The air of the day passing quiet...
With more of nostalgic flight...

'Only this particular spot
By the river has remained almost the same...
Remember?'
She started with renewed vigour...
Of her journey to this part of the land
Where she surely spent some days grand...
I waited for her to break into more
Of her girlhood frocked and ribboned green...her mickey moused door...
'Remember?...Once on a wintry evening...
We all gathered here...after our
Daily grind with books
Tables...piecharts...like compressed molecules...
We wanted to burst...
We thought to have a farewell party that would last
Till the next morn...
Decidedly when we would surely be torn...
From each other...sickled by the time...
We had songs and games and barrels of red flowing wine...
We sang songs that night...the whole...
Till the wine made a trance like toll
On us...we laughed...we cried...
On each other's arms we heaved long sighs...
And on the bow of the sleepy boats
We slept off with cracked throats...
Made hoarse by our foolish cries...songs and sobs...
And the next day...we were to be lost in the mob...'
She talked relentless...as if she had gone back
To that day when we had our last get together
When we all wanted the time to grow weak and slack...

'seriously...so many days have passed
Since then...'
I added somewhat sad...
Lugubrious... Like a man turned again a lad...
Young...hypersensitive...touched
By the long memory lane march...
'Hmmm...'
She stopped...
Looking at me with a searching glance...
'I could see streaks of white...
In you...like a sweet aging sign...
Like the town you also changed a bit
But like this evening...there is also a youthful street
Still in you where icecream vendors do come...
Where still play in a water tank colored fish some...'
She said...in a tone of observation...
'Now...tell me...what in me you see?'
She asked...quizzical looks
That me to the lost days took...
I turned towards her to get close
To see what changes left marks of prose
In her poetry which once me submerged...
I looked at her eyelashes large...
'You've changed surely but to me
Changes make no impression...you see...
For a river can never be old...
She can flow...flow forever...
And a man can never a river in his heart hold...
So...you are...flowing decent with time...
So you are like unuttered unwritten lines
Which occur to mind which inexhaustibly pines...
For perennial love...an undying sense...
You can't for me appear changed...'

With this utterance we stopped...
She bent her head on my shoulders...
And before us time seemed ceased...
As if the hands of the clock took a nap...
And a smile appeared gradually in her lips...