Poem 5
Title: Cremating my lover in Varanasi
When I woke up to the hour of incense,
the day had already gathered all my loneliness in its palms,
and crushed it into the copper baritone of kerosene lamps.
Moon fell in the narrow lanes lifting through air like black rains,
and I saw it—the light in the river holding the tender light of the sky in its muscular arms.
In the most ancient city of Kashi,
Gods and ghosts stroll the streets hand in hand,
sometimes dropping a dime or two in the aluminium bowl of the blind singer
who croons hymns in the praise Gods and the worlds they weave from their pinkie fingers.
Sometimes the Gods too need to be reminded of their divinity.
Sometimes the Gods too need to be reminded that everything in this universe is just a manifestation of theirs.
Searching for the hotel that accepts only dead as the guests to check-in,
I watch an aghori bless a toddler
by slapping a handful of cremation Ash across his forehead
and an old Bollywood song wafting from the smartphone of a cycle-rickshaw puller
reminds me that this is the city of the Lord of dance,
who also rules the realm of time and death.
The burning pyres on the Ghats.
Only what'll be touched by death holds beauty,
but beauty is born from the lotus navel of the unbodied and unborn.
I am just another voice lost in the twilight-lined throat of the one who masters moon,
a red-eyed dream kohled with charcoal time.
What'll I do of this fixation with a particular form?
It's trash, it tastes like vomit in my mouth.
Your absence ripened into the April greens the air like dappled moonlight through amaltas.
Even in my dreams I inhale the cobalt-blue of your smoke-body,
but here one temple bell at a time, the air cleans itself of the imprints of every dead and living.
As I lie in the palm of the music coming from the blind singer's iktara,
my surrender is small and complete.
Posted Apr 23, 2022, 3:53 PM UTC · edited
I really love the imagery in this. It felt sacred.
Thanks a lot