Quilters

The best quilters
know that
being a man
comes with
the territory
of gentleness.
Extreme gentleness
too
can work wonders.

The soft endorsements
are made
by beacons of light
and the hands that
have felt a
baby's head
sew and stitch,
the tactility
of their palms,
fingers and thumbs
unlike others.

Imagine
one of those
finely-woven quilts
on the chowk's
dusty abdomen,
an orphan
given
the most
inauspicious welcome
around a neighbourhood
of artisans.

***

When a quilt escapes
the warmth
of any human body
and is given away
to the winnows
of cultural ruin,
it's not just the bodies
that fear the cold.

When the facilities of gentleness
suffer these blows,
a quilter's heart
breaks.

It's gentleness
that he learns with his hands.
When other pairs of hands
throw those seeds of creation
on dusty side-streets
like alms for blind horses,
they stop
and sigh.

You should listen to
the throbbing sigh
of these hands that quilt.
Nothing is sadder
to their craft.

Yet
all they know
is to quilt.
The fabrics are veins
extending from
these timeless
hands.