A Lost Memory of Delhi, reads just as such. A lost memory. Something that you can barely remember and maybe it's just a color, or a pattern, or a flash of people. This poem reads like any train of thought or memory should, and it packs a punch to go with it.

I am not born
it is 1948 and the bus turns
onto a road without a name

This poem is immediately confusing or startling because of the voice of the narrator, the child. Where are they physically in this? Do they exist, are they merely watching. The tone in this pieces speaks as if the narrator is viewing their parents from a great distance, it doesn't feel close, and this isn't the normal, "observing my parents." There is some subtle and some blatant use of phrase that makes this piece a little darker than most, as if the person, (who we know is directly involved because they are the child,) is an outsider looking into a very beautiful world that they aren't exactly belonging to.
The poem is divided into 3 line stanzas that make up this piece, which gives each stanza a mini story, or a snap-shot of a moment, which is very fitting when they talk of family albums. Within the stanza there is a beautiful image, but to juxtapose it, there is a very uncomfortable aura that comes with it. Lines such as: I am not born, I pass my parents, She doesn't see me, all of these lines alone don't have the same impact as they do when they are accompanied by the beauty that is so OBVIOUSLY separate from this person. This comes to a head at the very end of the poem in the last three stanzas:

I want to tell them I am their son
older much older than they are
I knock keep knocking

but for them the night is quiet
this night of my being
they don't they won't

hear me they won't hear
my knocking drowning out
the tongues of stars

Wow. That is an AMAZING, and visceral way to end this poem. From "I am not born," to the "night of my being," it come to a full circle. When I first read this poem, I thought of conceiving a child, from the view-point of the fetus: viewing a world that they dont belong to yet. However we do see that the narrator is viewing these things, which makes this even more confusing. It'll be interesting to get some thoughts on this in discussion. I think this has a lot to do with the insider outsiders within family, but also children relating to their parents. The narrator stresses SO hard that he is older than they are. Of course it is not literal, but why would a child think that they are older than their parents? Old soul? It feels like the parents are so carefree, living this beautiful life, and the son, the narrator is more realistic. They see the faded photographs and the broken lamp, they see reality for what it is, and it is that alone that separates them in this poem.


... Sigh

Can I just hear that one part again?

hear me they won't hear
my knocking drowning out
the tongues of stars

mmmm.

Bluey aka Michaela C. Ellis