I wish I never had to write this piece. Momo left on 31 May 2016 ; she was less than 03 years old and we never found her remains, which lie lost in Binsar wildlife sanctuary.
Beethoven’s Five Secrets will always be kept safe
Between us. The music hanging onto the webs of our oak trees.
Into the crevices of each rock you sniffed
Every blade of wild bamboo that you fought
As it bristled in the winds of our forest trails.
We met, Momo, when I was old enough to embrace a baby
And you were young enough to be blind to my inexperience.
And in these past years, we grew—I, into a scattered parent
And you, into a gorgeous brown, beautiful lady
From the puppy with rabbit ears and eyes
Eyes, that showed me what a volcano and a sea meeting would
look like.
Your love for the cello and drools for Tiger cookies lie
untouched
Like books abandoned, a fine line of dust just appearing,
In my heart, where you live on.
And in my eyes, watering with the reflection of your fierce golden
green ones.
This goodbye is a helpless stacking together
Of all our stories together, all our little memories
The time when you walked around proudly with a white
moustache
And then declared, in the smelliest farts, that you hated
milk.
The rat which you hunted and proudly served onto my shoe,
for dessert.
The times you chased your friend Basanti,
Convinced that the little brown fox was your mother.
The first time you met your lover, Simba
And played so hard to get, he had to kill a langur to
impress you.
The days you spent languorously sprawled in the sunshine
Which bathed you golden and me, tanned.
Every time, I climbed the stone steps to my room
Which for you had only one name, “Cookie time”
And you raced me till we panted, empty of breath, full of
joy.
The nights you scratched at my door and slept on the wooden
floor,
Staring into the fireplace, like you had all the answers to
this universe’s ways.
All the pots you broke, bones you chewed, pieces of toast
you buried away.
The way only you could make your entire bum wag, when I came
home
Your sprawl, tummy up, staring at the bright blue skies
Always keeping a lookout for flies and my hand on your
belly.
You taught me, Momo, that food is all the joy in the world
And hugs and walks come a close second.
That it doesn’t matter what the world thinks,
One must drool and wag like there is no tomorrow
And one must sleep away all stress.
You showed me that your wet nose and warm paw on my knee
Can fix all kinds of heartache.
This last goodbye, is mere words,
Of which you only understood a few.
You spoke with your eyes,
Scolding, nudging, prodding, loving, fearsome eyes.
You left, barking into the face of a leopard.
And in that too, you taught me
To look fear in the eye and shout.
To look death in the eye and not give up.
I have not found you, or the red collar you hated so much.
And as you remain obscure in the forest,
I will learn to embrace all that you left behind,
Until the day we meet again.
Until the day I can let go of this boxful of memories
And begin anew, with you.
Momo and I, January 2016
