The View from Zero Bridge

My father made his way to Zero Bridge
Before the sun slipped up the riverbed
And lighted plum groves — long before the cars,
Carts, rickshaws, trucks, and bicycles emerged,
Dew-slick at dawn, into the dust. He passed
Our shuttered shop, passed Ram Bagh Road, arrived
And, with his camera, peered over the edge
On long shikaras jostling side by side,
Their pointed noses wedged on the stone slab,
Their open bellies full — kohlrabi, beets,
Red carrots, long green kuddu, string beans — rows
Piled patchwork, high as each small boat could hold.
The farmers, barefoot, balanced at the edges,
Haggling, counting, weighing. He framed and shot

A young man in an orange cabled sweater
Swinging a bale of okra to his shoulder;
A pyramid of eggplants on a scale;
A farmer setting weights to balance them,
The wind across the Jhelum billowing
His gray pajama. After the shutter closed,
The farmers tipped their heart-shaped paddles, turned,
And rowed to Dal Lake’s maze of floating gardens.

It must have been our last year. Had he known,
He would have waited for the shot he missed:
The empty boats, the paddles poised to break
Morning’s gold film, laid thin across the lake.

Lynn Aarti Chandhok
The Missouri Review
Out of Bounds
Volume 28, Number 3
Winter 2005

Copyright © 2005 by The Curators of the
University of Missouri.
All rights reserved.
Reproduced by Poetry Daily with permission.

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