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Dark Eternity
I am a traveller through time and space,
who has been in and out of the world –
In darkness, light explodes -
Fearless of oblivion, I seek the
beginning and the end –
The world surrounds me in the
colour of its dreams –
mesmerised, I am sucked into
the darkness of womb after womb –
sacred shrines throbbing with
rhythms of creation –
A dark eternity pursues me
through air, through water,
through fire, through sky,
through earth…
It took me endless deaths to realise eternity -
It took me countless eons to measure infinity -
It took me ageless prayer to glimpse divinity –
The sum of myself and eternity forms life –
My previous words, actions, deeds –
all haunt my blissful sleep, they tell me
of great events to come -
I have envisioned it all – life after life
in the cosmic womb-
I bathe myself in colours of sound,
I anoint myself with perfumes of light,
I clothe myself in burning fires of life,
I lull myself in rhythms of heartbeat…
Hark! my sleep is interrupted by wild
waves in the moving waters that
surround me – the waters in which
I float with the grace of dancing bubbles–
Yet another hibernation comes to an end,
as rainbow voices beckon me from
the tunnel of light that dissolves my
soothing darkness –
Yet again, I am sucked into the vortex of life
to begin a journey full of laughter and tears…
Waiting for Autumn
Autumn, you are the beginning and the end -
Leaves of burgeoned gold flirt with the sky in
burnt ochre, sprinkling sindoor into my thoughts
as darkness invades light, charms her and makes
her his bed-mate. The colours of spring are too
pastel and summer is often grey; but, you,
Autumn, queen of seasons, eternal bride of the
sun - dressed in russet red, edged with burnished
gold - erupt into song and kiss my soul. You warm
me with your soft fires as the sky turns into birds
and chases a fleeing summer. Then, I, the dark
woman in the trajectory of your consciousness
echo your dreams…
Your dark days dance like peacocks and call
out in monsoon klaxon. Your winds strum
home-thoughts in the notes of a thousand
vinas. Your crimson waters bleed into the
earth; your womb bursts open in coral and
fills the air with mellow mists - when I
become broody, you lend me your womb…
Your rain-clouds, hiding Indra's lightning bow,
come bearing the message of a Yaksha, lost
in a mountain kingdom. You ripen my verse
with the melodies of my plains and hills, you
soar on your wings. Take my melancholy in
return, scatter it in your insides to sprout in
your fields and harvest it in golden sheaves…
I hear your laughter rustling through the night;
Hail-stones, your broken bangles, speak of
spent passion with the sleeping sun. Your
glittering frost, jewels for the trees, pours
from the red sky like the tears of an exile.
Your moon, cloaked in mists, serenades my
chakora spirit with fragrant madrigals and
leaves his rays on the edge of my sari…
When the wintry hordes attack, you break into
gold, red and amber and immolate yourself in
endless spaces. Then, time freezes in my veins.
But I know, you will rise again like the phoenix -
Until then, Autumn, I shall wait for you…
© Usha Kishore, April 2008
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