Sunday, April 20, 2008

Dedicated to John Steinbeck and his 'The Chrysanthemums' (My private reverie at a coffee-shop on a moonlit night)



Elisa waters her Chrysanthemums as I sit in the moon-bathed coffee-shop –
My eyes stretched on the other side of the road: blink and drop.
As I look on farther and deeper,
Past the mud, over the fence, across the road, arrives the tinker.

It was the white road there, and the moon-tainted greystone here,
It was a fence there, and it’s my two by four bed here,
But our eyes still take flight
Like the sharp edged Chrysanthemums shooting up to the stars into the dark night…
Yes, it was night there and it is night here.

You had stretched out your hands to feel the touch of light but I keep it folded,
You had given the Chrysanthemums to him and he had discarded –
You had hidden your face against the white road at the Chrysanthemums drowned in your fears,
But Elisa, he has returned to me now, and
I see him everyday, arms outstretched to give back those shoots of toil and tears;

I want to grab and grip them back, but numb I lie,
The moon has set now, and the soil behind the fence and the Chrysanthemums die.

Elisa, your toil of nourishment I couldn’t plant back,
As I sit scribbling down as Preludes’ “ancient women” against the rack.

The crimson petals now stare at me in painful derision,
Or is it mocking my lifeless vision?
You tried to iron the crease out of your pink dress of desire
And I wear it now as my motley of mire.

A tinker comes to every life and the parody being:
Either he refuses you or you refuse him,
The moon-dimmed greystone ever awaiting the Tinker of the Light,
To regain hope, or till yet again, life rejects life.

I’ll rekindle my candle again as it burns its both ends fine,
I’ll build a sand castle of rootless Chrysanthemums another time,
And auction it again in the market of emancipation…
Till the silent road screams again:

Rejection, rejection, rejection.

©

Do you remember?

Do you remember that day when you saw me?


Me, oblivious of your presence? Do you remember how we had exchanged the first words with intermittent hesitations on our mind? Do you know that I had felt then what I feel for you now?

Do you remember that small wooden bench by the side of the lake where we sat?

And we spoke a world without speaking a word? Do you remember the person who gave you the best compliment? – you are yourself when you are with me…
Do you know that I had felt then what I feel for you now?

Have you thought of those crooked paths ever after you left? That corner stone, half glistened by our peace and half torn by the storm that was raging inside you… your ego tainted lips won’t reveal the secret of the holocaust that only I could see in your subtly glistening eyes? Do you know that I had felt what I feel for you now?

Uncontrollable were you, wild and untamed… do you remember how I had watched your calm countenance against the sparkling water splashing over the boat? Do you know then I wanted to tell then what I feel for you now?

You had asked me what do we have in store… I wanted to say “happiness”, but dared not, lest I’m carried away by your ruthless passion… I had replied, “let’s see what’s in store” –

A small feather asked to blow with the breeze or choose to be with current… it could only bear to wait till the breeze had passed… but the breeze is still here, while it craves for the storm… afraid all the time of calamity… well that would have been calamity without and heaven within…

It was then, and it is now… you couldn’t see then, you can’t see now… I felt the same then, as I feel now.