Baptism By Colors
The Christmas lights shine while the temple bells
Toll. The baby lies bloody on the bed- 'delivered'.
Its dusk, a shade of grey dusk but again a dark blue
Around the corner; not a sound did roll nor did light
Strike and it slept. Hush baby... they will come! Among
Her broken toys and impaled dolls she sleeps like the
Child of time- she is black.
Again, the star shined and the bells tolled and they came- all over her,
They trampled and burnt her sins away. Smoke and soot and hell fire
Rained everyday and she took it all in. Like the voracious petals of the
Venus fly trap, those lips of hers engulfed them and stayed content.
It lay in the night... At least she had the night. She was content. Slowly
The saffrons, the whites and the greens entered her hollow being
Day after day and she did not know where they came from.
Even the one to be delivered that rested inside her grew impatient.
It broke free and she lost. It was buried amidst the fanfare and
Ho hum of those colors. The same colors that devoured her sins
And had her delivered, and now they lie in constant wait for the
Reigns to break so the stake is theirs to burn. The witch must burn.
The Green must burn, the saffron must be severed and the white
blackened they thought.
The witch died, and so did they but not the colors. As the
Child in time sleeps under every roof, so does those black eyes
With glowing fangs, under the bed. Just below the flesh
And the wooden bed, you can hear it breathe and crave blood
And carnage. Every street, every devil's bend, every wall bears
Its name. Yet it hides, kills, plunders and hides. Yet another
Deliverance and another coming against the eclipsed sun.
Tomorrow if a life is born I shall warn and mourn and curse
The deliverance coz the colors will lie in wait under its bed.
Sharp talons and itchy fingers waiting for it to blossom and
Tear it up in pieces. Yes! This is our deliverance... We all shall
Be delivered some day. But, I hope my child of time is colorblind
And comatose- Maybe dead. For then it wont hear the evil crawling
Under its bed, see them on the streets and feel them inside itself.
That day will be her baptism and maybe she will wake...
© Malyaban Lahiri
Copyright © Malyaban Lahiri | Year Posted 2012
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