Is Life What It Seems? Poem by Anindita Bose

December is cold, but the first day
of that month was my warmest

a cake, a shirt, a packet of cigarette -
my father never demanded anything

sometimes I wished I could give him
everything, but he was a wise soul...

nothing made him happy, but watering
the trees, and feeding the hungry mouths.

What will I do this December One?

My childhood is now dead, the carols will
not be magical anymore.

Only if the streets of Calcutta could take me
back to those lanes of lost time
and I could again walk amidst those fading
memories...

perhaps my father is still smoking a cigarette
in his room, wondering if life is what it seems.