Dahlias In Windowpane

Exactly five years ago I lived in a city

that I named as the city of my struggles

quite an imposing brand you would say

but I found it appropriate in my mid-twenties.

I crawled against my inertia to move

dragging myself outside everyday.

At exactly half past eight in the morning

I would hop on a bus to my workplace

I could recognize every face in there

perhaps I seemed mundane to them too.

I tried to look for novel pictures

relaxing on my fixed window seat

peeping out to find traces of another world.

Just before a lazy traffic signal 

the bus screeched loudly at a stop

cars puffed smoke groaning more than their owners 

the cacophony seemed unbearable.

On the opposite side stood a building 

seemed ancient but echoed with giggles.

My eyes always paused at a window

marked by mauve dahlias visible from the pane

spraying hope on whoever smiled at them.

The owner was an old man perhaps in his fifties

watering them with all the love he could.

He glanced once or twice at me

as if protecting his darling dahlias

I laughed and the bus moved to my destination 

I forgot about them in my hectic day.

Then at exactly half past six at dusk

the bus sighed at the same stop .

The dahlias lighted by lilac sunset

smiled at me to revive me with joy,

behind them was a proud bookshelf.

The old man next to them with his book

caught me red-handed staring at his dahlias

then laughed at my sheepish grin and waved.

I waved back to the gentle old man

and this became our routine for the next four years.

On melancholic days he waved them at me

in joyous moments he greeted with a smile.

Then my struggles in that city came to an end

I moved to another place forgetting that trend.

One day I paid a visit to someone in that neighbourhood

the building no longer seemed to echo laughter

someone said it had been ablaze before the rain

no casualties since the residents had been evacuated safely.

I hopped on the same bus and saw the broken window

from where the old man used to wave at me.

A memoir of my diary in days of vain

now symbolized by a forgotten windowpane,

but I noticed something else to make me smile

a tendril with a single mauve dahlia crept from a moist wall

reaching the old man's broken windowpane.

Perhaps something in that corner had been left for me

a fragment of the frayed phases in my journey.