Saturday, August 28, 2010

English, August


Changes...changes...changes...for the past month and a half, I've been teaching English to a bunch of Middle School students. It's been tiring, rewarding and strangely cathartic. The red pen has helped but so have the teaching aids: the music of Mozart on my laptop, the yellow smiley badges, the Harry Potter Grammar worksheets (excerpts from Harry Potter and The Philosopher's Stone), the hurried scribbles and doodles on the blackboard and in their notebooks and of course, the role plays. It's been ticks and crosses and happy faces and sad faces as I took (irregular verb!) them from the Simple Past to the Past Perfect (it really was perfect back then, wasn't it?) and helped them express themselves through abstract nouns. There have been hiccups that snuck (or is it sneaked?) in.. but somewhere deep inside, I have known all along that English will be back in my life some day. And so will passion. :)
Now it hasn't been a joyride obviously, with viral fever and us moving and yet another ambiguous relationship which reached an even more ambiguous condition and terminated, apparently. Can you miss what you never had? The use of "love" as an abstract noun should really be banned. It's a verb, through and through. Always, always a verb.
Some might want the opposite, I guess. Easy to believe in, impossible to do!
Anyway.
I was going through my stuff and found my college diary. A poem caught my eye. I wrote it on 28th December, 2004. The occasion? The death of Sirius Black, Harry Potter's Godfather. I don't know why, but I really, really want to put it up here...today...NOW. I know there are references to details regarding the conditions of death that you can't follow unless you've seen the movie or read the book "Harry Potter and The Order of The Phoenix" but I'll risk it.

You sit and watch the hours turn
The rose into a thorn.
The night, it darkens into night.
There's night - and never morn.
You're waiting for the gushing stream
And oh... your face forlorn
And you're waiting...

The memories...each day, each hour,
The moments ticking by.
"And it's okay.. and it's alright.."
(How much could you deny?)
"He should be here, right here.. with me.."
(He isn't.. wonder why?)
But you're waiting...

You see him in your dreams so oft,
Don't want to stay awake.
"But he's alive! I'll see him still!"
(Your faith.. would nothing shake),
And yet, for every breath of yours,
What chances won't he take?
You're still waiting...

You'd seen the spell that hit him so,
You'd seen the shock, the fear,
"He isn't going ANYWHERE!
He's still so close...so near!"
You'd seen the veil - it rose and fell.
You'd seen him disappear...
And you'd waited...

And THEN, the truth your heart had felt
And cried a silent shriek...
He's gone...and there's a void inside.
You're stunned, you're numb, you're weak.
But then, from somewhere deep inside
You heard him... heard him speak.
He said...he's waiting.

He said he waits for you to rise
Above the gloom, the chill,
He waits to see you make him proud,
You've promises to fulfil...
And just as grey your days appeared,
Your life, a burden seemed,
He clutched his aching heart and said,
"Harry, I'm with you still."