Pokhara 1978
Twenty-eight years

since the last goodbye

he brings me long blacks

tells me stories

from before my time.
One day I’ll document

this pre-history

let lines leak from my pen

let him explain the now

through the then

take his word for it

and take it as read.
Today I only listen.

I’ll say it’s only words

but even he

knows it’s words I value more

than anything.
A story ends with tears

in our eyes

I nod, of course

there’s always more:
the dusty unmarked road

of my family’s village

the bright rattling bus

the blonde woman

in jandals and cheap

cotton clothes, drifting

a world away from love.
There’s the man

who will become

my grandfather

in his favourite hat

– I imagine –

calculated steps

recognising gravity

in departures.
He wasn’t so old back then

walks his son home

with a comforting arm

as the bus carries on

mutters Babu

to grieving hands.
The story ends

in tears

just the first few drops

in a lifetime

of constant goodbyes.