Journeying

                                                Journeying

    Here's Ba in black-and-white,
    waiting for the whistle's shriek, the forward lurch.
    She's going to meet her brothers, attend a family wedding.
    Widow's white sari, grey hair pulled back,
    one lens of her glasses shining, opaque.
    Part of her body is half-erased
    by light from the compartment window.
    The rest is in shadow.

    In a film, the camera would pan now,
    in a blur of compressed time, rushing
    to her next journey: the hospital,
    the cremation ground.

    She joked that her ticket to death was booked,
    only the berth was not reserved.
    When the time came she changed her mind,
    dug in heels too weak to hold her.

    Let this photograph replace the memory
    of her departure. Its shadows hide terror,
    confusion, descent into coma.
    Her destination is the obliterating light.