Sharmistha
Silent, secret, the shadowed light of an unknown maiden drifts into the mist-wrapped yellow dawn, her hands scattering coloured dreams, clasping them close in sudden passion. Behind her lies the weary yesterday, blue scraped raw from a lover’s breast, time torn and hollowed, trembling with frail humanity, while upon the world’s unsheathed sword the body falls in bloodied fragments. When the hour is spent, when all must cease, the beginning and the end are but one. Yet before that last stillness, she returns, bearing a thousand dying hopes— hopes that yearned only for death. Rootless leaves scatter in the winter’s touch, tattered cold, on the edge of spring, burdened with storm. The frozen floes stir: you came— through abysses of sleep, unknown maiden, adrift upon the stream of unmeasured time, to the heart that remembers nothing. Your skin, layer upon layer, shines with doubtful glances, a mind steeped in disbelief— and yet, in the luxury of new-born war, you gazed upon it...