Roots Poem by Prabhakar Subramaniam

I come from a town
Where the rain keeps coming down
Like an interminable monologue
Where the houses are so far apart
That they are often found
Talking to themselves
Where the roads cannot keep straight
But wind and rise and fall away
Keep disappearing from sight;
The few people who are out
Seem unable to smile
Bearing the umbrella like a cross;
I was born there, so it makes me an outsider here
Though I was much more an alien there
For inheriting my father's dark skin
For his black soil, rain shadow, eastern roots
Speaking the same language
Hardly makes someone feel at home
When one could have done with kinder words
Less of the contempt-dripping stares
The stopping-at-the doorstep frowns
However unwelcome, it's still home, you say
How can it be home, when
Home is something you want to go back to
Or hate coming back from
Not some place, you are reluctant
To go back to
Or readily leave
Without so much as a glance back