What Farewell?

Context: I'm leaving home today, after spending pretty much all my life in Mumbai, for New Delhi. One too many people who know this asked if I would miss home. Sufficient provocation for one who resorts to poetry at the drop of a hat anyway.
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WHAT FAREWELL?

De urbe prima in Indis

First city of my life, too

My gateway to the world

‘City of Dreams’ they name you,
Two dozen years you’ve nurtured me

And all my dreams within.

Now comes the time to chase them beyond your boundaries

Consoling myself with the delusion

That you might weep to see me go -

Though only two drops of your tears

And a crinkled, wet-eyed smile –

Delusion, I know.

The city that never sleeps

Will hardly miss one insomniac.

As for my part?

I would say I’ll miss you

If such a thing were possible.

We both know it isn’t though:

To live here is to leave your soul here,

To leave you is an illusion.

Your winds have nursed me to sleep,

Your bright sky has been my roof,

A boundless horizon

Birthing boundless dreams beneath,
For you have grown in me

As I have grown within.

Leave you?
What madness:

The rhythm of your rails is the cadence

My heart knows best

It beats in time,

My breath rises and falls with your waves,

The bright red that runs in your roads

Runs in my veins alike,

If I toil, and stand soaked in my sweat

It is to feel I am drenched in your rains,

The glorious hues of your sunsets

Are the palette to which my imagination aspires,

My dreams walk your lamplit colonnades

Tonight, and every night.

I couldn’t leave you behind if I tried.

This, where the road takes me now
This is just a detour,

Wait & watch

You’ll see, McArthur had it right,
Because I know you,

I know your nature

It is hope, and -
I shall return, my hope, my light, my love,

To you, I shall always return.

Mi yeto.

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* Mi yeto is Marathi, literally, "I will come (back)".
The belief is that, when leaving someone's home, it is inauspicious to say that one is leaving ("mi nighto" / "mi jato"). Better the promise to return, sincere or otherwise!