
Dear Antonio,
It was on some fortunate day
that you decided to wrap your fingers
around a violin and weave
a wreath of jasmine flowers:
a composition on the month of May.
It has often kept me up
way past the midnight hour
and I have very nonchalantly hummed
all the licks and the riffs
that have lingered
in the back of my throat
like something extremely sour.
I don’t understand music like you did,
and probably never will
but, the one thing my little soiree
in Punjab has taught me
is that Spring is something we feel
on the nodes of our fingers:
the pollen that gets into my nails,
and the corners of our lips:
the sap that drips as I chew a basil leaf,
and the curve of our hips:
the blades of grass that pierce
my beloved’s skin as she sits
on them to read Wordsworth to me.
Roses bloom the same
in both our corners of the world
and songbirds here
hum the same melodies
as the songbirds there.
I imagine you writing
what you wrote
while watching a pair of guileless pygmies
chasing each other
at the bank of a formidable river,
jumping across the all-seeing rocks
and occasionally catching up with each other,
only for the woman to smile and run further
away from the bewitched gentleman
which then leads to a brief altercation
reminiscent of the high and low notes
that you placed in alternation.
Spring to you is what it is to me
and thankfully, when the Sun is covered
by the greying clouds of December
and the songbirds have all retired
to the insides of barky trees,
I can revisit it through you.
Thank you.
Dhruv Trehan is an eighteen-year-old from Punjab pursuing his undergraduate degree in Literature from Ramjas College, North Campus, Delhi University. When he’s not studying, or writing cheesy poetry, he spends his time working as a freelance content writer and participating in poetry slams.