MOHIT MITRA Poet Lyric

Waking Knife

—Rooster at Four—



At four, ere day had breached the village sleep,
the roofs lay drowned in tenebrous blue;
the wells kept counsel in their fathomless deep,
the furrows held the last of night in dew.
Then from the wall, beneath the homeless star,
a scarlet utterance cleft the dark.

I asked him, “Why do men ordain thy death?”
He turned. His comb received the nascent fire.
One ember trembled there; and underneath
the earth seemed listening through root and mire.
He watched the roofs, the field, the road, the stone,
with that grave stillness of the already known.

Long was he silent. Then his voice was low,
almost as though the answer were not his.
“Perhaps they hate what makes the darkness show
the shape of what they thought their darkness is.
Some voices do not wake a man from night;
they make his darkness answer for its light.”

The butcher came. Rain darkened boot and sleeve.
No malice followed him, nor penitence;
only the iron ordinance to cleave
what custom had delivered to his hands.
A barefoot child emerged, with bread in hand,
and watched the cock descend into the dawn.

The blade fell. One vermilion feather rose,
slow as a relic no hand dared retain;
it crossed the child, the roof, the neem-tree's boughs,
and vanished where no eye could follow plain.
No seraph stooped. The empyrean stayed mute.
The kettle sang. A bicycle crossed the route.

Then windows opened, one by one. A broom
passed through a doorway. Someone called a name.
Milk whitened steel inside the little room.
A woman wrung the water from her frame.
The child still held his bread. He turned away.
The village entered its accustomed day.

At dusk I saw the butcher by the tap,
washing the blade beneath the public light.
The water took the crimson from its lap;
the metal offered neither wrong nor right.
He dried it, folded it, and walked away.
Above him, stars resumed their ancient sway.

And now, when cocks convoke the buried dawn,
I listen past the cry, beyond the ear,
where some anterior summons has withdrawn
the veil from what we call asleep or clear.
The sleeper turns beneath the ancient roof.
Outside, the morning enters—without proof.

♡Like0

Share Poem

---

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