Lamenting Wings
"you are more than I deserve. It's a love I never dreamed I'd find. Happinesd like this is worth dying for..."
- Yasunari Kawabata-
Looking down, while flying midway between sky and earth,
I saw a dog on the grey tongue of an abandoned road,
Licking its genitals under summer-noon's hot slogan.
And I understood how badly I had drifted from your hills.
The hearth, that eatthen hearth, we often mended with butter-clay scooped out of a shallow river called "wahumkhra",
every time it cracked, pitilessly, after meals we managed to cook, sparingly though, will always remain as the only string that holds the chandelier of my fragile existence.
O that sweet hunger, how I yearn for it now.
The pallet of pine-needles stiched with old sacks,
on which we gathered dreams with smell of pine forests,
was no lesser than the priest's preachings on sunday mornings about His heaven's promised infinite sleep.
The narrow streets on which I doddered looking for work,
with constantly slipping away toes from outworn sandals,
while you waited for me with the blossoming seed in your belly, a future, full of honeyed beehives, over which I staggered drunk with restlessness of a beggar, for which I repent till this day.
I never knew, honestly, that I will become an irrelevant thread in the embroidery of jasmines on the hem of mekhala chaddar worn by a naiad, for the first time, shyly, when she attained puberty, and on the day of her subsequent gandharva marriage to an alchemist.
For the time being, I exist as a windless flag with no colors, neither white nor of any color known to mankind.
My soul and heart stay bled, like the butchered wings of Jatayu, but sweetheart, you will hear me flutter, sometimes, in the chuckling of a wounded squirrel and wailing of a cicada in the pine-hills where winds tease clouds, where you dwell reminiscing shadows of our silhouetting nonsenses.
Notes :
1. Mekhala chaddar, a traditional of Assamese women.
2. Gandharva marriage is one of the eight classical types of hindu marriage. This ancient marriage tradition from the Indian subcontinent was based on mutual attraction between to people, with no rituals, witnesses or family participation.
3. Jatayu was a vulture, in the hindu epic ramayana, whose wings were severed by ravana's sword, while attempting to rescue sita when the latter kidnapped her.
Copyright © Ibohal Kshetrimayum | Year Posted 2019
Post Comments
Poetrysoup is an environment of encouragement and growth so only provide specific positive comments that indicate what you appreciate about the poem. Negative comments will result your account being banned.
Please
Login
to post a comment