MOHIT MITRA Poet Narrative

Exanimium

—Post Mortem Lectio—


Thou cam’st by chance unto this page,
         in some still hour when lamps burn low;
a quiet room, a folded night,
         and naught but idle verse to know.


No witness but the patient walls,
      no sound but paper faintly stirred—
yet something in the silent air
      grew strangely watchful as thou read’st word.


Perchance thou felt it once or twice—
          a pause that chilled the drifting breath;
a thought half-formed behind the mind,
          like footsteps walking close with death.


Forgive these lines: they know thee well—
          thy lifted brow, thy doubtful gaze;
the very moment thou didst stop
          to wonder at their curious phrase.


For just before thou reached’st this verse
      thy fingers lingered on the page,
and some dim instinct stirred in thee
       that something watched from out the age.


Yet mark thee now a darker truth
       few living eyes could comprehend:
this script reveals itself alone
       to those whose breathing hours have end.


The mirror clouded yesterday.
       The hound that shrank from where thou stood.
The clock that faltered in thy hall—
       all signs thou never understood.


And if thy gaze hath travelled here,
       still calm beneath the lantern’s breath,
then know—thy reading is the proof
       thy life concluded long in death.


But ere thou turn’st away in dread,
      one final mercy must be said—


The lamp beside thee is not lit—
       it burns above thy coffin lid—open.

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