Kathakali
Small words— she never speaks them. In a mind half-hidden, bound in silence, her eyes say everything to mine. Words for the sake of words, monotonous and pale, sometimes heard while love is weaving its net. One night, words blossom in the mouth— a sudden nightmare, a room gone dark; a solitary soul in the lamp of midnight, trying to hide every dream-breath, yet revealed— on the breast of clouds they long to drift away. Among the insulted, countless spoken words— one night, when time stumbled out of order, she almost said the unspoken things, but hid them, and chose not to leave. In sleep and dream I see— who can tell these things? At dawn’s edge, the heart cries in liquid weakness; blossoms of spring, Kathakali in Brajabuli. I have listened with care, in utmost secrecy— you can tell her heart by the rhythm of birds in flight. Again and again in our gaze the river...