Fernweh

(Quite literally, a longing for far-off places.)

Last night,
The Boy with the Summer Caramel and Winter Chocolate eyes,
Told me, to set my second clock up at a difference of one more hour, because winter – and hence daylight saving time-
Jad crept into the Fairytale German Town, the one which will soon transform into Narnia with each snow.

The entire night-
I spent thinking,
Of Winters I never got to know
Of Monsoons that went by too fast,
And one whole night-
I thought of Forgotten Cemetaries
With the buried Sciencemen and Artists side by side
Of the sacred groves by the Oak and Willow trees,

But above all-
Above all, last night- I thought,
Of how, with The Boy moving to different shores in a fortnight-
I will never, never again get the chance,
To set this clock back by an hour.
In my hourglass – I will be the White Witch
That brought to this, My Narnia – a century long winter.

But slowly, slowly that same winter,
Crept in freezing my lungs, and I swear –
This morning, in this City of The Blazing Sun –
When I pulled up my knees to my chest,
And let out with some tears one aberrant sigh-
I felt the chill of the winter,
The pull of the approaching December,
fleeting by.

A 13, or perhaps 14- year old me,
Had read in a book that
” December people are temporary. “
Half my life went by wondering
if my effervescent nature will bring pestilence,
and sadness to the ones in my life.

But today – I realised,
December people are only temporary when you chain them
When you give them the wrong material things,
And expect them to grow Roots.

Give us December people,
A city where history lives on every door,
Give us a city with Solar Systems on its Cobblestone Pathways,
Give us a one-room apartment that has known more love-
More love than entire mansions can hold –
And you’ll find us – the Temporary People,
Weeping over cities, that we have
Hardly even lived in at all.