|
****
What am I holding in my hands?
A bansuri flute or steering wheel?
Rusty vehicles running over your chest
As you pray in a wet rhythm your prayer
You and the deities in Gomfas
O mountains! Hey Driver
Your son is climbing on top of you
And he has no fear of the face
of the moon
Your soft hairless bossom
Will you stop with me?
Will you stop me if I go on?
***
Who will cook the kheer? The custard
Who will feed your mouth
Like a baby and what about your tapas penance
In the rain?
And who are you?
Who is the Lama?
Who his own god?
I am not your Sujata*
***
The Lama, between the legs of the sky
He does not know what to do
He is bhikshuk
He does not know
Look at his slender foot
from under his red jama cloak
It hits his friends as a kung-fu kick
Now he is a squirrel running
And now a rabbit hopping
A cheetah cleaving through the dry leaves
And lurking through the branches
At my naked uncovered body
Into the ears of childhood
The Boddisatva elders whisper
The Lama! The Lama!
And the sacrifice their thoughts for Gomfa
***
This is called Moonland, Ma’m!
Navang is saying cheeringly
It is not the moon you see
when you see the moon
The moon is of made of Thali’s copper
And it doesn’t float on the water
Look! It is stuck in the branches
Of the coconut trees
It is flesh hanging from mountains slopes
It is a termite hill, a sandy trees silhoeet
Quarrelling with the clouds in Kerala
This is the land of the Moon, Ma’m!
***
Now that the moon is so very close
Now that it is just under my heel
Under the soft bridge of my foot
He kisses my red toe nails
Caressing my jhanjhar and toe rings
The bells around my ankles
My mehandi henna coloured feet
Too compassionate his lips are
My feet is burning
Oh, now I understand why my legs
I also am moon bejewelled with firewood sticks
Shining like plantain’s trunk at night
Do not keep your lips and fingers away!
I feel my thighs
Soft arid lumps and mushy termite hills
Biting desires, unfulfilled wishes
Lips full of promises
A waterless river runs through my bosom
It sprouts from between my breasts
The two twin mountains of Leh
Gomphas are my nipples
A waddi bed cracked down to my navel
It splits down as deep as a padm chakra
Why are you so close to me?
Avadhoota! Wandering sage?
***
Where my breasts lie
They are fluttering
Pigeons in cages
On snow covered mountains
Gomfas are on top
Gods live in their nipple tips
Look! I am suffocating
My body is blue when you exhale
I have been stirring in the valley
Where the line of your forehead shows
Pink, your lips are pink as mountain roses
Keep them away, as thorns prick me
Why are your vein so prominent?
A green valley taking on the shape of a bare chest
I am snow, a desire deceasing, freezing
I am all scattered on the map of your skin
I am ice on your body and melting into you
Don’t tell me your body is the flame?
It is a burning pyre of passion
Moving with the rhythm of sickly sweet air
Blow your air softly into me
***
Jule, she whispers into the name
Of a mountain’s smile
Jule, she said with carrots, beetroots
And tomatoes in red hair
There is no rush for sale of vegetable
No hurrying now to earn the money
To buy the world
Jule! Every one is part of the mountain
Jule! Jule! My lips kiss Jule
My tongue licks Jule
Jule! Jule! A smile of deity
Is on my cheeks
***
Oh, I was not offended the way
I entered in on my own
High and higher
I just kept on riding
Sweet and sweeter
I kept on changing
If you wish
For me the peace the devata holiness says
Cut away from the market place
Cut away from compelling earths
And from people’s palaces
The Gomfas are hanging as nests
From the mountains tops
And they will see you
Drag me on and apply colour
On my face
Threw me from top of heaven
I will fly
Whispered into my ears
Tell me of the buttery statues
Of the demons in Lamayura
I am not afraid
I am ready
For colours, for yellow nutmeg and salt
Chiselled from a big mountain mighty shoulder
***
Inevitably indeed
The pain of falling
But then
There’s the climbing up to the top
Again
***
You? When were you here?
When last? When amidst the malangas naked saints
Oh, blue sheet of your shining body
As neelam sapphire blue
Gotten blue from mountain kisses
Oh Lavanya! Oh happiness!
But know, so much salt is not needed
Haul the fishes away from in front
Of my straining eyes
I take the ink from the inkbottle
For my poetry of repentance
Sending you a letter on the sea
Sea, my friend, do not go away from me
Stay my friend!
***
His eyes sink like dead fish
How easy to forget a loved one?
It’s the same as forgetting
A living one
How cold the water of passions
Now suddenly?
Oh sea lake! Oh mother’s womb!
How salty you are your time!
***
Yester night you and me
Under the dark black sheet
Of the sky
You became the mountain
I a cloud
Then we flew away
Birds across rivers
And I slept in your lap
You were there
You were not there
I shined on your forehead
I, a drop of salty sweat
|
