Naming

On those bricks
built as a bane,
was this plate clutched
garbled in gold
I saw letters rooted
like creepers crawling in vain
a language read as archaic allusion
as if plastered onto Pharaoh's pyramid.
The arrival was anticipated
and a coconut fell in salutation
when they told me
that their house was called
the land of one coconut tree.


Three houses away
their hut was known as
the land of three coconut trees,
while at a distance of two houses
along the orange mire's swamp
they called their hearth
the land of tigers,
for their great grand father
found a cub to pet
while on a spirited soldier's sojourn.


In that land, rivers have
pend poetry to christen houses
while nursery rhymes have babbled
from a four year old's lips
to reach her parents
when they baptized their abode
after their child's favourite fable.
Rambling along those shambles of soil
to kiss the horizon's hue.




I saw a red bus
rickety and rugged
greeting the soil of a roof
named after it,
both exchanged an embrace in
a conflicting contention
while I smiled at the thought
of names that the birds and trees
would remember until they
don't shed their last bone.