To My Little Brother

Another year since you have gone

How far have you traveled?

Can I ever catch up with you?
Talk to you again?
Where are you? In Heaven?

Up in the mountains I go rotating 'Mane', 

the prayer wheels of this Budhist Gompa

to send my prayers for you
Am I close to the heaven?
Am I close to you?

I go around spinning wishes
with my numb fingers
The snow on these spindles is melting
The sun is bright and close, very close
Are you close by too?
I am trying to reach you through air and ether

Am I reaching you?

I can not hug you or touch you,

or see you in flesh and blood
or talk to you about somethings you left unsaid..

Things, about all of us, about our mother
who searches you in her empty womb
and about the inanimate things left in 'your' room.
The song playing on your music system,
the magazine on your table
and half done packing for your travel.

How could you leave to an unknown destination
unplanned, unprepared?
Where are you? We miss you.
Do you?

Wrote this in April 2001 in Tangtse, Ladakh Valley, at an altitude of 13000 ft.  These words are for my youngest brother who left us in tears on the 25 APR 1998. Just 13 days before his 21st birthday..... Life has never been same without him. He took away a part of each one of us, his siblings and a major chunk from my mom's life. We miss him a lot. There is a void unfilled, questions unanswered and pain unsaid.