Ancestral Home

Ten Years ago, as I walked towards the shore
I saw the decorous lighting, aglow
But little did I know, the decorous plot
Was my grandfather's ancestral home

A yard in the front with a well to draw water
Where women in sarees carried pots on their hips
using the pulley and more importantly physics
To hydrate their bodies with some clean well-water

The walls were crumbling, but inhabitable is was not
it smelt of earthen pots and puddles after rain
The incense stick after my grandma's ritual prayer
lingered inside the tattered down God's room

And the floor above where assembled the crowd
looked strong and sturdy as before
the crumbling walls were no match for the floors
Which stood strong even after years of being corroded

Today, the building is almost to the ground
Kissing mother earth, embracing her womb
But the smell of worship, smell of wet mud and the smell of excitement has vanished
For the insular house, is cowed down my a mammoth of buildings

Bending over to see, waiting for the demise, imminent
And the smug in the buildings, criss-cross, straight designs
All faces of rude impertinence
For my house is curvy. Lines move like a goddess' body
And no geometry can define it's magnanimity

For the house was made by bricks, mortar and a whole lot of love and care
and the building beside, can't help it but hide
their construction on false pretenses, of artificial edifice

My family home is dying,
But never in the memories of her great-great grand children.
She will forever be thriving.


Comp entry: If walls could talk