April Again

What made Eliot write, ‘April
is the cruellest month’, I don’t know.
April is the burnt out end of spring,
rivers go dry, wells turn hell holes.
pipelines get hot, naked wires
say touch me not like
a coy woman in period.

Buckets , pots , vessels queue up
middle aged women jostle to be first
before street taps oozing drops
municipal tankers move in lame hope
on the tar of parched roads
well dressed men create scenes
before the flash bulbs of media crowd.

At night sweaty faces in candlelit room
whisper prayers for the God of light
newly weds start quarelling
on the colour of the bed sheet.
.

April returns every year
the harbinger of younger brothers
May and June come to char
the last remains of patience.

I now know what Eliot meant
bathed by the sun in halfway street.