Gopu M. Sunil
Between Coconut and Dust
In the north,
mustard clings to the fingers,
yellow staining the skin.
The land opens wide,
cracked in places,
remembering each footstep
as a small violence.
Here,
the wind arrives salt-green.
Banana leaves split in it,
and the canals carry
the slow gossip of water,
someone rowing home,
another fading from sight.
Winter there
arrives with instruction:
Arrive, wait,
Leave.
Here,
Rain does not arrive—
It remains.
Wheat has soft signatures
on rusted palms,
and school shoes
drink the dust dry.
They build with stone,
stacking history into walls
that outlast their echo.
We build with water,
with reflections that travel
farther than roads.
If you touch them too hard,
they rearrange
without breaking.
Between their dust
and our river,
I stand where both
have entered me,
setting the seasons
within the same body,
Learning,
in different dialects,
how to belong to the Earth.