MOHIT MITRA Poet Lyric

Optical Heresy

—Prithee, Beloved, Tarry Yet Awhile—



Lo! from the crypts where buried hours conspire,
the past came flooding with a nameless force,
and pulverised the dreams of obsidian fire
I bore within my eyes along their course;
yet thee, beloved, whom those dreams enclosed,
the ruin could not wholly discompose.

A childhood afternoon returned entire—
dust silvering a bicycle's worn chain,
the iron scent that follows sudden rain,
a whistle thinning through the telegraph wire;
such trifles, entombed beneath the years,
rose armed with teeth and drank my inward tears.

Then memory unsealed its subterranean sea:
old names, old faces, departures without graves,
a schoolbell striking through the dusk at me,
the smell of wet earth from forgotten days;
each recollection smote the inward glass
and drove another century through the past.

Prithee, beloved, tarry yet awhile;
I carry thee where dream and vision meet.
Touch not the fragments glittering round thy smile;
their edges have grown treacherously acute.
I know not which small splinter shelters thee,
nor which has learnt the shape of wounding me.

Let me stoop slowly through this inward wreck
and lift each broken heaven from its place;
for some shards still retain the vanished speck
of dawn that once inhabited thy face.
One enters flesh; another enters thought—
I bear thy vision where the wound becomes an eye.

Then, without wind, the splinters turned to rain;
the dead stars climbed the wounds they once had made,
and every wound became a seeing vein;
the heavens broke, yet nothing fell or stayed.
I touched the glass—and understood at last:
the shard was not the thing the years had cast.

So tarry. Let me finish what I must,
lest memory's bright wreck should enter thee;
I shall remove the fragments, not the dust
of all the years that taught my eyes to see.
And when the final shard lies still apart,
I shall not seek thee. Thou wilt be the sight.

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Alison A Smith August 19, 2026 at 9:33 PM Mohit, this is another absolute triumph. The way you capture the sudden, almost violent resurfacing of memory is breathtaking. The transition from the grand, surreal "obsidian fire" in the first stanza to the incredibly grounded, visceral memories in the second—the "dust silvering a bicycle's worn chain" and the "iron scent" of sudden rain—is masterfully done. It anchors the sweeping emotion in such tangible reality before plunging us into the "subterranean sea" of the past. I am entirely captivated by the central metaphor of the shattered "inward glass." You perfectly articulate how dangerous and sharp our own memories can be, with edges grown "treacherously acute." Yet, the true genius of the poem unfolds in the latter half, where the destruction transforms into a profound new vision. The line "every wound became a seeing vein" is pure poetic alchemy; it is a haunting and beautiful way to describe how our deepest hurts eventually shape how we view the world. The resolution in the final stanza is stunning. Moving from the fear of the beloved being wounded by these fragments to the ultimate realization—"Thou wilt be the sight"—is a gorgeous, transcendent finish. Thank you for continuing to share such intricately crafted, deeply moving work. MOHIT MITRA August 19, 2026 at 9:57 PM Cherished Alison, Foremost, I bow in soulful humility before so profound a reading of my creations. Henceforth, I can discern but two reasons for thy gracious appreciation: 🤔 First, perchance my poor verses bear within their rain-drenched embers some residue of volcanic Sol-fire, kindled by lived experience, which my quill, having touched the wound, can do naught but bleed. ✍️ And secondly— "For as a mother crowns her child with beauty, though Time may find No symmetry upon his face, yet Love sees none behind; So may thy generous heart behold in my poor verse its worth— And make the poem fairer than the poet ever made it forth.*" 💕✨🕊️