For a little boy (new sawaal)

Little boy, don't fall out of love
with me.
That I am growing old is no fault of mine.
I want this face to stay smooth as
could be
I didn't want it disappearing - line swallowing up line.

Little boy, don't fall out of love
with me.
I cannot help it if they will not stand -
your card-houses, your sand-castles
by the sea…
Wind and water do not long stay loyal to land.

Little boy, don't fall out of love
with me.
It is not my doing - this hardness of eye.
The hard clay, the rock walls of this world
I see
are sinking into my vision, by and by.

Little boy, don't fall out of love
with me
Though I am neither witch, nor fairy of your tale
Nor the wind that howls, nor the breeze
blowing free.
At best, I'm a book - for now, beyond your pale.

But little boy, don't fall out of love
with me.
In ten years, in twenty, you will begin to understand.
Though it will be forty years before, finally,
you see
such driftwood as my silence, such longings of quicksand.

Little boy, don't fall out of love
with me.
But love many others… many, many more.
For love, in a man, will branch and flower
as a tree,
only when rooted in the first love of yore.

(c) Annie Zaidi, April 2005