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 all,
as though it were but a fragment of stolen time,
a solemn vigil before the end.
In the breasts of men, tears brimming,
she hurls her darkness toward the world,
a flood rising from the hidden eye,
her heart’s convulsion breaking loose—
the strange girl weeps like an earthquake,
as if her eternal grief were release!
Though Nature has cursed the wretch with birth,
still in silence within some clamour
she dies seeking the bloom of her arrogant soul.
Her roar shakes the heavens,
her passion trembles with love’s very proclamation.
My barren lap, my dust-strewn pyre,
my heart dead in the stench of graves—
yet her cries reach where once I freed Nature herself,
from famine’s blame,
from flood’s cruelty,
from the terrors of upheaval.
Before Nature’s end,
let her accept me—let the fire rise.
I, having passed through unnumbered days,
saw the unknown maiden in dream:
she came clad in plain attire,
shielding a virgin soul
in a civilization built of oceans of blood,
in histories where innocence was never born.
Morality’s burden crafted the world’s frail households,
but sin, like stone, held them firm.
I bore pain; relationships proved but false imaginings,
my society and its daily poverties,
adorned with hollow sacrifice.
When sin reigns, the earth runs red.
The dusty road is never straight;
blood clots its path.
Yet the unknown maiden, full of human feeling,
made me tremble—
for what if the shackles of faith, the arms of religion,
choked her with anguish
because I crossed the river of blood with sword in hand?
Would she grieve for my poverty?
Too long I have lived,
and know the worth of heart, of awareness;
sorrow encircles me utterly.
Perhaps it is sweet to drift like a leaf in storm,
a withered wintry body without soul.
Her breast heaves with sighs,
nostrils flaring with forgotten splendour,
her great eyes swelling with newborn tears,
dew trembling like summer sweat
upon her quivering chin—
symbols of life, and surely of death too.
Like waves upon the sea,
the funeral fire consumes the weary traveller,
offering rest only through flame.
I feared her gaze, yet found it peace—
those eyes of longing call,
like Yudhishthira on his final march.
Through every vein courses fire,
yet in her fleeting touch
the strange maiden grants a moment’s calm.
Green with youth, our land stands still—
in sorrow, hunger, dreams, its history’s end.
Yet sometimes human force rises beyond disgrace,
surging toward famine, pestilence, plague.
Hungry hearts cling to suffering.
Then, for no reason, the strange maiden smiles—
and I saw that thousands upon thousands yet live,
though Death hovers in her dark, wide eyes.
This is the land of rivers and shrines,
the sages’ Himalaya,
the sea’s restless edge,
the sandy deserts where green grasses glimmer.
The unknown maiden came,
barring my deathward path.
Sharmistha tilled my barren field of life,
to sow her harvest,
to kindle a flame of being.
She scattered the darkness of despair,
bade me rest in moonlit delight,
and dream once more of love.
From her eyes fell a single orphaned tear—
and it sank into my bleeding heart.
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 all,
as though it were but a fragment of stolen time,
a solemn vigil before the end.
In the breasts of men, tears brimming,
she hurls her darkness toward the world,
a flood rising from the hidden eye,
her heart’s convulsion breaking loose—
the strange girl weeps like an earthquake,
as if her eternal grief were release!
Though Nature has cursed the wretch with birth,
still in silence within some clamour
she dies seeking the bloom of her arrogant soul.
Her roar shakes the heavens,
her passion trembles with love’s very proclamation.
My barren lap, my dust-strewn pyre,
my heart dead in the stench of graves—
yet her cries reach where once I freed Nature herself,
from famine’s blame,
from flood’s cruelty,
from the terrors of upheaval.
Before Nature’s end,
let her accept me—let the fire rise.
I, having passed through unnumbered days,
saw the unknown maiden in dream:
she came clad in plain attire,
shielding a virgin soul
in a civilization built of oceans of blood,
in histories where innocence was never born.
Morality’s burden crafted the world’s frail households,
but sin, like stone, held them firm.
I bore pain; relationships proved but false imaginings,
my society and its daily poverties,
adorned with hollow sacrifice.
When sin reigns, the earth runs red.
The dusty road is never straight;
blood clots its path.
Yet the unknown maiden, full of human feeling,
made me tremble—
for what if the shackles of faith, the arms of religion,
choked her with anguish
because I crossed the river of blood with sword in hand?
Would she grieve for my poverty?
Too long I have lived,
and know the worth of heart, of awareness;
sorrow encircles me utterly.
Perhaps it is sweet to drift like a leaf in storm,
a withered wintry body without soul.
Her breast heaves with sighs,
nostrils flaring with forgotten splendour,
her great eyes swelling with newborn tears,
dew trembling like summer sweat
upon her quivering chin—
symbols of life, and surely of death too.
Like waves upon the sea,
the funeral fire consumes the weary traveller,
offering rest only through flame.
I feared her gaze, yet found it peace—
those eyes of longing call,
like Yudhishthira on his final march.
Through every vein courses fire,
yet in her fleeting touch
the strange maiden grants a moment’s calm.
Green with youth, our land stands still—
in sorrow, hunger, dreams, its history’s end.
Yet sometimes human force rises beyond disgrace,
surging toward famine, pestilence, plague.
Hungry hearts cling to suffering.
Then, for no reason, the strange maiden smiles—
and I saw that thousands upon thousands yet live,
though Death hovers in her dark, wide eyes.
This is the land of rivers and shrines,
the sages’ Himalaya,
the sea’s restless edge,
the sandy deserts where green grasses glimmer.
The unknown maiden came,
barring my deathward path.
Sharmistha tilled my barren field of life,
to sow her harvest,
to kindle a flame of being.
She scattered the darkness of despair,
bade me rest in moonlit delight,
and dream once more of love.
From her eyes fell a single orphaned tear—
and it sank into my bleeding heart.
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