A Mirror Floating in Water

prasuuti

The rusty water pump, how it crinked as it
Went up and down and up and down,
And mommy said it was Saraswati, who
Was a mightly river; creative, purifying, nourishing.
Her children are Vedas.


anaghataa

Anila and I, we ran through the streets of Bengal
Merchants, traders impeled through our vision
Like stars in a sun, burning, bursting with energy
An air unto all rivers; creative, purifying, nourishing.


samunnati

Linglithgow, sends two hundred thousand to Europe
Churchhill is busy with Greece
1943, Prabodhan is on the pyre. Sleep well my brother.
Gandhi is dead.


vitati

Infinite floods of people, infinite like ants when you stomp on a sandhill
Flooded, diseased, famine, sick, sick people. Pale, shaking hands.
Saraswati has let out her wrath. Kumar is lost to the crowds.


samzodhana

I met Ankur at the univsersity. We were like waves, flowing
Fasting, on the beach, the tide coming in and wetting the sand.
Sarasawati is an atom that makes bombs. The fire of her rapids
Leave dents in earth and cities. Post-radiation sickness.


bhaya

A Pakistani I passed on the street, and I clutched my saris;
I was a follower of Sanātana Dharma, he was of Islam,
I wore a tilaka and he wore an agal.
We passed, not crossing eyes.


aparaahne

Aunt, your horoscope says I am late,
Late while I find that all days pass with the wind
As if a smoke of the imagination, they die
And lateness comes with things past.
Does a woman need another Kumar?
Aunt, did I ever tell you about Ankur?


vicintaa

There were always these hills, the mist,
Which runs north towards the Ganges river.
Sarawati, of course. The name makes me smile.


vilambita

Nittin, how long we have lived,
I look and find that the repitition of the evening
Is even more tiresome than the excitment of dawn
Or the dread of night.
Nittin, you know that I was cold, indifferent
For you seemed to me like a stone,
A stone chosen for me, or rather me chosen for it,
But time has sunk into the heart, or at least
Rote repetition is able to hold sway over youthful passion,
And only memory can still torture these dull senses.
I still sometimes live in those days at the university.
Nittin, did I ever tell you about Ankur?


nidraa

Pastoral fields, how weary, stale, flat and unprofitable they seemed
When bones and muscles ache, and the fingers no longer reflex.
But this morning I awake to a breeze from the East, yet it will come.
I drift off into the next life, even if only in mind's eye I hold
These visions of light true, I still drift off like a feather
Into a never-ending sleep