Worry

186 | VIDYAN RAVINTHIRAN Worry Vidyan Ravinthiran poetry isn’t doing something about the problem —train yourself out of these thoughts. So they say. But I think of my dad coming upstairs to ask in his quiet, sad voice, “Can we leave in ten minutes for the station,” even though it’s an hour till my train back to you, and he doesn’t want me to go. His father’s fists turned him mild as a Jain to his son, me. A boxing champion, he’d jog in his crop-top round the lagoon hunting snakes. Then he flew here alone. No wonder our tribe is of the worrier-caste, thinking always of the vanished countries of the past and future —to draw a line between, and know that we abide. ...