I can deal with people asking about the cliff about the mindset I was in.
But how dare they ask me about the scars that run along my body from the fall.
Because suddenly the conversation always seems to turn into an evaluation.
And the dynamic changes you become the doctor I become the unwilling patient.
You say your just trying to help me but I don’t remember asking for anything from you.
Oft resting under wooded trees
Roams she, hides head behind bent knees,
Adjusts her scant bosom rag, tries
To foil peering moon’s prying eyes.
___________________________
Translation (quatrain) | 30.08.2025 | woman, moon
Note: Here is a verse (in Upajati meter) from Bhartrihari’s Shringaara Shatakam (hundred verses on love and romance). A woman is separated from her husband and roams looking for him, hiding in shadows of woods, adjusting her meagre bosom cloth, sparing it as if from peering moon’s prying eyes. Here is the transliteration of the Sanskrit verse:
Vishramya vishramya vana-drumaanaam
Chaayaasu tanvi vichachaar kaachit |
Stana-uttareeyena karot dhrtena
Nivaarayanti shashinah mayookhaan || 56 ||
Blazing blue sky
White clouds nice looking; praising
Peach, red flowers pry.
Vying, not prying, but then crying
What I thought would be a promising day
fell from the sky with a thud when I arrived
Early on it was fine, but suddenly it appeared,
a reminder from where I was no longer
and why I shouldn’t have left that damn door open
Only a fool keeps those ties in place
when it never changes, it’s always there
like a scar that was so deep the skin will not forget
no longer hurting but the pain returns in lingering fears
that who you thought you were was wrong
Hoping to be the first, I found that once again
the number I had drawn put me at the back of line
So by the time I got to you I was nothing, no one special
just another of the bunch vying, not prying, but then crying,
so what else is new
He coaxed me
out of my mind,
leaving songs as treats
knowing I couldn’t resist
dashing out and gobbling
each chorus and verse
the delicacies
of my own precious,
scrabbling back
as musical notes
dribbled my chin
to leave a trail
he tracked until
I was cornered,
holding out his hand
to take mine
and forcing it
across a braille of skin
sheltered for a lifetime
light crept
to pry its fingers below the lips
of eyelids,
from the ridges of history
I was illuminated
in his epidermal fresco
—-
A blind madwoman
chose to see again
I just opened my eyes
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