You died on a Saturday

-Brian Mendonca


The dreaded sight was before me.
Though I knew about your demise prematurely.

There you had stood tall,
In the amber glow,
Waiting for us to return from work.

You laughed in the sun 
Even when your time was up
Giving all you could,
When you could.

Your mangled remains hurt my eyes.
I find it difficult to control the wheel.
Vehicles pause,
Then head their way.

A sobering reflection for a weekend in autumn.

Gashed, exposed, diminished and bleeding,
You lay there,
Though GMC was a stone's throw away.

Why does my eye not rejoice,
At the uncluttered view at Bambolim slope?
To the left and to the right,
The fallen lie wounded.

A sense of anomie, despair and helplessness grips me
As Goa is ripped,
Bit by bit.

Another one bites the dust.

At Guirim the avenue of coconut trees is flattened.
At Cortalim the shade of centuries
Is laid asunder.

A blue finch flutters
from the leaves to the Nuvem road
Rechristened NH 66 
- one more 6, the mark of the devil.

Close by lie the remains of a dog rotting on the road.

Bikers in mirth haste away, suitcases in tow.

As we go on living and partly living.
Trying to make sense of our psychotic lives.

Are the changes we see
Worth the murder of a tree?

(Saturday, 27 October 2018, Goa)

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