Poem: From a Bench to a Frame
The story of lost love reminisced on a birthday. This is the essence of the string of poems that Priya Patel and I exchanged over a busy Monday. It was Monday for me, and it was Sunday evening for her. Yet, she said this.
I like this particular string. It hits a personal spot somehow. I’m glad you started it :) ~ Priya Patel
I will reveal the secret of this string at the end of this blog. So you got to hang on. Promise?
Fine, here we start.
Poem: ON A PARK BENCH
I wrote this poem when I was on my way to catch an early morning train and I did not sleep. Somewhere, hidden in me, was a dreadful day from my past for which I am still seeking pardon. But the poem is about lost love, for a lover who waited for his beau, sitting on a park bench, with a gift on her birthday.
I waited for you at the park bench
Remember your birthday.
It was just after breakfast
The sun was still climbing
The chirping birds had picked their worms
The nestlings yapped for their fill
The breeze was getting warmer
Passers-by looked at me wondering
I didn’t mind when I waited for you
Time did not make sense
I reminisced about our journey together
A world that we had created for us
Cozy, cuddling in our utopian paradise
Past flooded the present
While the present waited on a park bench
Remember the time that
we sat on this park bench
Watched the sunset over the lake
‘Look, how beautiful they make’
You pointed at the two birds
Building their beautiful nests
‘Much like us’ you said
Holding my hands tight
Sitting right on this park bench
The sun smiled from high in the sky
Giving me warmth and hope
The nests up the trees were silent
Youngsters napping after their fill
I returned to the present
Holding your birthday present
Waiting on a park bench
You are…somewhere else
Perhaps, closeby, but for me-
a world away, far away
The sun has gone now
Quiet is the noisy nest
A time for the day to rest
I still hold your birthday present
Waiting on the park bench
~Ashok Subramanian © 2023
Priya responded as the lost love who is not alive but can see the mortal waiting on the bench. The tone is poignant yet pleasant. Read on.
Poem: Our Bench
I see you on the bench;
our bench,
eyes lost, staring into the lake,
remembering the moments
that have become a recurring ache,
remembering us holding hands
The winds are stronger today;
strong enough to tousle your hair,
enough for the leaves to shake
and the silence to tear
and the geese to fly away in fear
But you, you remain still
I wish I could touch you;
sift my fingers
through the soft of your hair,
kiss the eyes that look so lost
because there is noone there to care;
because suddenly, I went away
It’s my birthday today,
had I still been alive;
the day we used to
hold each others hands;
ignore all the don’ts
and the many I cants
and sit on our bench
making promises
of dreams to come true
If I could cry I would
If I could touch you, I would
If I could turn back the time
so I could be on that bench;
just to be in your arms again,
I would …
~ ©️ Priya Patel, May 29, 23 🕉
The poem put the protagonist on the bench with hopeful memories, so I towed that line in my response.
You never came
Only silence remained
Your absence became my company
How I wished that you were there
A missing piece of my life
Hanging by a thread
Many birthdays have gone
And new nestlings appear
But our memories remain
Your spot on the bench is empty
I visit our spot every day
Hoping that you would come
Like the sun that lights up every dawn
I am still waiting for you
Sitting on the park bench ~Ashok
There was a silence from Priya. Perhaps, she was busy. So I wrote another one — this time, looking from the frame. After all, Priya’s POV was from the afterlife.
This was a sort of letter, written in poetry in prose.
Hi
How does it look to be framed? You keep staring at me from the photo. There is no smile. You were never good at posing for photos. You freeze, remember. Now I see that stiff face frozen and staring at me.
My conversation is now one way. You still stare at me in silence.
Of course, I can turn to the albums for memories.
But I like your stiff, hopeless stare trapped inside the frame.
I laugh and laugh.
Yours…
The lover sitting on the park bench appealed to her lover in the frame. Now see the park bench — photo frame connect.
Why do you stare at me
with eyes so unforgiving
as if I had planned to be
on this side of the frame
Silent, unable to lift you
from this place of desolation
Flip through the memories
where we stared into each other
where we fell in love
with falling in love
In those memories,
we both laugh and laugh
Unframed ~ Priya
Priya’s response on behalf of the departed lover behind the frame was to unframe the situation between the waiting lover on the park bench.
I switched my point of view and built on her poem, making it a complimentary effort. The lost love is now from the departed lover in the frame.
I hate to be framed
And stare at you in my afterlife
How it was to be unframed
Sitting together on the park bench
Enjoying the vicissitudes of life
What we went through together
The travails and triumphs
The sorrow and the joy
Till my fateful birthday
I couldn’t sit on the bench
Life threw, at me, a wrench
I saw you through a frame
Where I would not rather be
But sit with you on the bench, in glee. ~Ashok
The final piece was from Priya. She reiterated the fact the lover in the frame is still in anguish and pain on seeing the lover waiting on the park bench.
My heart breaks a thousand times
for every birthday you wait for me
I’m here, I want to scream
I’m here
We both write, side by side
yet separated by a thousand skies
Each, even in poetry, pleading
for the other to be alive, unframed
so that we may each write to each other
How sweet is that my friend,
to write so selflessly to each other
each on the bench, just waiting ~ Priya
There is life to the bench itself. The bench has seen stories of love and loss, hope and introspection, like the two lovers in our poems.
“There is only one way to understand a lonely bench in a park: Sit on it; watch whatever it is watching; listen whatever it is listening to! Sit in spring, sit in winter, sit in summer! To understand something deeply, you need to live its life!”
― Mehmet Murat ildan
You can frame memories, but life is beyond that. A person on a frame can bring back memories from the past. Yesterday’s moments are today’s memories.
“You can frame a moment. But you can´t frame life.”
― Armin Houman
This was another great string of poems, hope you will enjoy it. The secret is Priya had her mother in mind, and the depth of her loss is reflected in her words.
Won’t you read again now?
~Ashok Subramanian
