June 2005
VOL XIII Issue 6, Number 146
Editor: Klaus J. Gerken
Production Editor: Heather Ferguson;
European Editor: Moshe Benarroch;
Contributing Editors: Pedro Sena; Michael Collings;
Jack R. Wesdorp; Oswald LeWinter
ISSN 1480-6401
TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
Clayton Eshleman
COMBINED OBJECT
CONTENTS
Wilhelm Klein
The Silent Companion
Tune from Hidden Valley
The Rose Hedge
Aboard
There must be more - but what?
Those who know
Poets and Bards
Of Demigods and Mortal Men
The Centerpoint
Orchards of Eden
Juan Pomponio
THE WORD IN THE MOUTH
PETALS OF SAND
Steve Klepetar
One Afternoon
A Spell
Agenda
Breathing Steam
Count The Heads
Durlabh Singh
GROW FINGERS
CHIEF SEATTLE ADDRESS
POST SCRIPTUM
Durlabh Singh
ALCHEMIST
Clayton Eshleman
COMBINED OBJECT
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Listening to Caryl sleep,
thinking of the cross-hatching in the 7 mile verticality of her living,
the Challenger Deep
as her mind makes its way across the 40,000 mile mid-ocean ridge,
across abyssal plains and canyons in tree-shaped networks,
across the hadal trench off Peru containing the oldest water in the world,
her young life, which she remembers so keenly,
like a die tumbling among arabesques of leafy sea dragons with seaweed wings
trailing kelp blends, green clouds pouring
from the sides of wounded fish, millions of image trains,
I am on one, looking down at the stratified trains below,
one called Venus's-flower-basket, the passengers:
shrimp, crabs, worms, and clams. Multiple water spindles containing
water fairy proms, high school friends being reborn,
I am following the course of her sleep
through sea pastures of whirring diamond saws,
under a cowl of pelican eels,
in full flight, astride the thorax of a four-winged flyer
she carries away with her, in her trailing skirts,
a web filled with tiny men, drowned islands, radiolarian ooze,
at 800 feet, only the deepest, blackest blue,
the ocean of her sleep breaks over me, like light gravel,
sensation of being in a horse's mouth, a deeper breathing is forming-
the infinite, far from being a suburb of the gods,
is an eternal surpassing, removed from any essential halt.
I see her standing before a glass stairway, a Jacob's ladder
with more steps than she could ever climb in three lifetimes,
they disappear like bubbles in champagne,
now she is struggling against
suctions and pulls, against stretched webs, against curving spidery legs,
she breaks free-what nightmare did she just slip?-
she becomes navigation itself, shining with a pure white flame,
passing over foaming ditches, wheeling ravines,
I imagine her retinue: dwarf plankton, flamingo tongues,
coccoliths giving the water a milk glow, bristlefooted worms
patterned with colored rosettes, arrow worms like fine threads of glass,
pteropods with winged feet, salmon-pink winged slugs,
salps like little barrels, pulsating, a mouth at each end-
out of the warm, dimly lit, dilute broth of a shallow Silurian sea
a jointed-legged proto-scorpion, ancestor of all on land.
How do without a head? How present all edges of the body
equally to the outside world? A poem without subject,
all parts of which surprise and interlock, a poem with twenty centers,
all muscular and avid, each word dense, full in itself, a nest,
a sound of wood crackling in the fireplace, a shiver without skin,
each word an outpost, a courier, monkey words
feeling the earthquake coming before I do.
Going through myself, is it her heart that I am hearing?
-she gasps-silence-rebreathes ka ka ka ka
suddenly, she is other than herself,
rake tines rise from her brow projecting brain energy into the atmosphere,
impaling celestial hexes, they glow pale blue in the dark
like thin upraised arms; I pass slowly through them,
standing in my Protestant canoe, alone, stiff, an erection curving
from a golden pubic beard-behind my back,
the Absolute, straight as a wall.
I am possessed by a sole idea: that snow is ceaselessly falling
obliquely through all of us, on each flake
the population of the Beyond cluster
like minute beardless seals, or albino cougars,
spherical, knots of unearthly calm
sailing on an invisible current. As my monoxylon
sinks slowly into dead space, the dark is flecked with one-winged birds,
with barkless trees, and I also see the full squalor of the sea,
the rubbish of a thousand boats daily fished up, winnowed,
and thrown straight back-crushed into the netted haul
the new mermaid, limbs twisted among dogfish, whiting, and plaice,
a deflated life-sized sex doll, hermit-crabs inside
her red-rimmed mouth. O sea layered into my dreams,
the daily rewound trash, visitations of the dead, Tenochtitlan
thoroughfares, extra-terrestrial spider queens,
cork-screwing flights through kaleidoscopic barriers
to land by a nightstand and be watched by
two swans, who are being watched by
two ocelots, who are being watched by two snakes, watched by
sixteen triangles, watched by countless staring eyes.
Cessation of the mirage of the finite,
illusory conviction that anything concluded exists-
call it reembarkation, call it a multiple leaving.
I have for shade a whole spread of hyena shadow.
I am my own ground, slashed, a wild sea of ground.
There is a silent breaking of waves, spots of light, sensation of fissure,
a flowing furrow, I see Caryl gliding through
the infinite little curlicues in its flanks,
when I graze her I graze a deep pit of joy.
Wilhelm Klein
The Silent Companion
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
A silent companion, yes,
That's what you are, in my waking hours,
And, maybe, that magic dervish
Who dances through my nights
When darkness reigns.
A silent companion with whom I share
My fare of thoughts
And more often than not the very source
That lets them surge forward.
Wandering across the slope
That blends the far horizon with the unknown,
I know that you are waiting there for me.
Entering deep forests, you are there
Opening the canopy of the trees to let the sun
Penetrate and illuminate a world
That is hidden from the fainthearted
In fear of fairies.
A silent, lightweight companion
Who has nestled in my heart is what you are,
Sweetening the flow of life
That circles through my body.
The square shaped buildings
In the city's jungle become
Chiseled mansions of art
When I see them through your eyes.
The people I meet become transparent
Revealing their fears and desires,
Asking silently for compassion where
Coarse words poison the air.
It's in my eyes, too, where you have settled.
Your presence is undeniable
Though you know when to fade,
Giving me a chance to compare
The sacred with the profane.
Since when do you travel with me? Maybe
You always did, maybe
You have already been there,
Entering me through the umbilical cord,
To balance the kiss of mortality with divine joy
For what's the span of my life.
You were with me already when
I didn't know of your existence
Until that day when like a chimera
You appeared and became visible,
Telling me it’s time to wake up
And acknowledge the divine,
See the boundless beauty
That permeates the crude.
For how long will you be with me?
A question only the uninitiated could ask.
Even when my bones have turned to dust
You'll still be there. I have inherited you
From the ancients and I will bequeath you to my offspring.
Hoping that they'll be as fortunate as I am
To meet you, face to face, to know that you can be
Revealed in a glance, in a touch
And in casually uttered words.
Hoping that they, as I, will be blessed
To walk the sacred mountain and drink the ambrosia
Of its creeks knowingly.
Who is that silent companion about whom I write,
That nameless spring of joy that sways supreme
Above the ordinary?
All I know is that a muse cannot be tempted
With all the treasures of the world to reveal itself.
Sometimes, though, when the constellation
Of the stars of fortune so arrange,
A transcendental light shines forth
In the eyes of someone and links me
With the abode of the eternal.
On that abode which spans across time,
Where space is not an empty, dividing landscape,
Union is the universal language
And oneness is the body that speaks silently,
There, the crude and flipping desires of the world
Transform and are anointed with the sacred first dew of the day.
It is there, where my silent companion waits patiently,
Residing in the near and far,
Beyond and within the boundaries
That shackle our bodies, our lives.
Forever. Just a magic chirp away
When my soul needs flying with the swallows.
Tune from Hidden Valley
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Beyond the Oxus lies a land
Where grapes and pears and peaches grow,
Beyond the Oxus lies a fabled land
Come with me love, there let us go.
From east of the sun, west of the moon,
From the Indus valley's source,
Begs the sweet sound of a Hunza tune:
Love, it's calling us with force.
When Golden Peak sends day's first light
Bouncing through the Karakoram's core,
It warms a people, handsome, strong and bright,
Come on love, what are we still waiting for.
It is long since I dreamt the dream
Of a valley of my own,
Far-flung and golden was the scheme,
But love, I do not want it alone.
Beyond the Oxus lies a land
Where grapes and pears and peaches grow,
A precious gift within our hand,
We've been there briefly, love, I know.
If we don't join this timeless search,
If there's no dream in our heart,
If we don't share this begging urge,
Love, the time has come for us to part.
'cause if tomorrow is like today
And you don't see a valid choice,
Without that light, there's only gray.
Please listen to the hidden valley's voice,
Smell the enchanting fragrance in the air,
And love, again we shall be there.
The Rose Hedge
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Enmeshed in the rose hedge of our emotions
We live our lives.
In the thick of fragrance and thorns.
We love and we suffer,
Constantly scratching and dressing the wounds,
Breathlessly gasping, swamped by the sweetness,
We lose touch with the ground
While bathed in the odor of life.
Enmeshed in the rose hedge of our emotions
We barely see the fields beyond.
Scared by the swish and the crack in the shrubs
We cuddle and hug in our cradle,
In joy and in pain, while uttering murmurs and cries.
Stomping the bull charges
And meekly the dog whines
Since what is called
The beginning of time. And forever
The wheel goes on turning and churning.
No beginning, no end.
Ambitions fulfilled
Are empty pages in history's book,
Written on leaves
That tumble with autumn's first storm.
Enmeshed in the rose hedge of our emotions
We cannot hear the serenity
That sings voiceless.
Sound with no ear to listen
Is on the wavelengths of silence
And light with no eyeball to hit
Is darkness.
The volume of a brilliant void.
Mountains grow old in a twinkle of time,
So do oceans;
They fill and they drain
While we ride on the crest of their waves.
Trying to cut a tunnel
Through the thorns and the roses
Is the Sadhus' terrain
While the rest of us mortals remain
Enmeshed in the rose hedge of our emotions.
Aboard
~~~~~~
The train is moving through the night,
The compartment's door is closed.
We are swallowed
In a void that encompasses
The train
And us within.
An empty bottle of Chablis
In a brass waste paper bin
Whose spirit fills the vacant space
With passion and desire.
No energy is ever lost
Changing its garment along the way
And so do we, Like Shiva and Parvati
Who are all and who are none.
In the glow of a glance
The dormant energy
That keeps the planets circling
Around their primeval ageless source
Comes instantly alive.
The void shows face,
Has texture, warmth and fragrance
And Buddha smiles.
The Lingam and the Yoni
On the ghats of Pushkar's lake
Are guarded by a sacred cow.
No one is to disturb
The weaving of the umbilical cord
That holds the universe
In an intricately fine spun web.
Those who lovingly induced you
To touch Christ's body with your soul
Still threaten you
Not to speak out loud
About the Spirits of the Forest.
While God looks on in sternness
The spirits are alive,
The hidden knife
Into which priests and scientists
Eventually will stumble.
For an instant
The train stopped.
Where should it go?
It had arrived
Before it ever started to depart.
Ultimately,
It will move on,
Passing waypoints,
Names and dates.
Yet in that speck of time
The moment of timelessness
Lives on, enclosed,
Giving sense and volume
To what is nameless,
What we grasp
In the best of our moments.
There must be more - but what?
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The E-train comes from Queens;
Five minutes interval on platform B,
The crowd in T-shirts and blue jeans -
Each one alone and struggling in a human sea.
The office on the 7th floor
By elevator from beneath the ground;
Body-tides squeeze through the door
Their bristling breath, the only sound.
What happened to Mary-Joyce?
Her make-up seems so vulgar,
And the department chief's calm poise
Shows lines of outright anger.
Four hours have already gone
Just twenty more till Friday,
Then she'll see Jack, or maybe John
A weekend, dance, the usual lay.
The E-train leaves for Queens,
Five-minute interval from platform A.
Squeeze into it with every means,
Rush it boy, no time to play.
A two-room condo in a low-cost zone
By elevator from the train,
Linked to the world by fax and phone,
No reason boy, for your disdain.
Perpetually tired after twenty years
In this moles' monstrous megatown,
The subtle feeling frequently appears
Of being the copy of a pirated clone.
There must be more - but what?
Those who know
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Then there are those who know and those who don't,
Those, whose flicker of life lasts an eternity
And those who grow old without having ever rejoiced
In the split second that was stolen from time,
In which loving compassion was born.
No, it's not a question of above or below, of more or of less,
Neither of here nor of there.
What I speak of is the fullness of the void
And the fear that vibrates in loud laughter across history.
Let us not argue with a breaking voice
When petals open to receive the dew of a new morning,
When the flute's vibration reaches the end of the universe.
There is a language in the air, older than time itself,
Fearless and joyful; creation's eternal jubilation.
Not you nor I will ever know the petal's joy,
When on it's lip
The night's dew is caressed by the sun.
But with proper humility,
It will make us comprehend.
Poets and Bards
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Suspended between heaven and earth
Poets and bards are banished from both.
While they drag their frail bodies
Through the sludge of their time
They starve on the diet
Of their unyielding quest.
Sometimes, though, they soar
With the birds in triumph,
And relish the soul's tranquil nooks,
Then, bedewed with the grace of the gods
They find heaven on earth.
Worth their exile from both.
Of Demigods and Mortal Men
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Shuttling between heavenly estates and
Earthly dwellings has been the prerogative
Of mythic demigods, the ideals of our formative years.
Now older, I know about their weaknesses,
Their desires, know about the affliction
They thus endured.
We, too, are not born innocent organic entities.
Between mundane stipulations
And the proliferation of our souls
We suffer and thrive in their wake.
Once stillness rides on the beat of our heart,
Gods have welcomed us in their abodes.
A clement moment, limitless,
Lets us taste the sweet abandon,
Of the world dissolving, as we remain.
Where else is there to go - Once you've been there?
The Centerpoint
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Striving, with hatred and remorse,
Against themselves during the fullness of time
They fret with Christ, Krishna and the Mother Goddess.
And in confusion whisper sweet words of relief
During the moon's pregnancy.
In both they do believe; and they relish,
Filling the white pages of their ledgers,
With bleached ink, day after day
And not once do they ask the question,
Do they stop the train that carries them in circles
Around that centerpoint where time comes to a halt and
The stillness contains the universe's entire movement.
This is the place to share what has been theirs
Unknowingly, throughout.
Only there and then, between before and after,
When time curves into itself
Can two lovers perceive their true being.
Their embrace faradizes the void
From whence they appeared, and into which, eventually,
They will vanish again.
An apparition, a dissolving nebula tinted with the color of joy.
Orchards of Eden
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
When spiked on barbed wire,
Your vain words decay,
When they burn on a pyre
There's no more to say.
It's the hour of trial, it's the hour to pray.
Eat the bread, drink the wine
This is the end of your way,
Salvation lies beyond its confine.
Communion is to know to be helpless,
Is to know that we all know the same,
To be players and pawns on a table of chess
In an ever revolving game.
Tired, frustrated, forever possessed,
With a new goal behind every bend,
It's there where we start our quest,
Where, indeed, our journey must end.
Wine, dance and the will to forget
Are the rays of the passing day's light,
In it we are drenched without much regret
When we stagger into the night.
Despite the wolves' frightful howling,
We grasp there's a promise in view,
Its sweet begging, an endless calling,
An objective we have to pursue.
While we weigh words with memory's tools
There's a covert new language around.
We yearn to learn its syntax, its rules,
Stunned by its magical sound.
It's in the night, when the muezzin's singing
And our soul shines in the light of the moon
That this language emerges, soothing and swinging,
A mantra, an Arcadian cartoon.
We seek solace, safety and peace,
Which the senses do not provide.
Our longing goes toward release
Towards union and the ebbing of the tide.
We find it in the arms of our companion
Who shares with us the dark of the night,
One mind and one body, in sacred communion
And blindness is dazzled by light.
Thus finally grasping what's hidden
For a moment of wonder, a moment of dream,
The sweet fruits from the orchards of Eden
Release comprehension supreme.
Juan Pomponio
THE WORD IN THE MOUTH
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Music, drum driven crazy:
fantastic skies charge
with the sweet drizzles of the summer.
And the words do not bear more
and they are left
falling.
Large catastrophes
they flood the sensitive palate,
they organize whispers,
they dictate an old spell.
Intact papillas savor the stigma,
they embed the conscience calm
in each poet of the oversight.
PETALS OF SAND
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Old prophecies
they announce your skin.
I write without ink in the sky
and your name appears,
Small flowers that shine the night.
The tide arrives,
nocturnal music that unfolds
Sounds without time.
In audacious waves
the rocks explode,
they pronounce your absence.
Dream without the ink on the land:
of your smile petals fly
they have gone to sleep under the moon.
They leave your fragrance,
They draw your name in the sand.
Steve Klepetar
One Afternoon
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
One afternoon it may
happen, so slowly you
won't recognize for a
while how your hands
come clean and your
stentorian breathing
shocks everyone you
love. The day's fiery
heart will open like a
cave door and there
you will be, crumpled
on the elevator floor.
It will be you they slap
and call as your name
hums in the wires to 911.
A Spell
~~~~~~~
Let wind boats sail in roaring air.
Today is smoke and fog, let mist
be the blanket of dreams, let
dogs emerge and vanish in
winding alleys between wet streets.
Let blue become the cold keynote
of failure, moan of empty hands
woven through all this silent sky.
Let the dying leaves drift in yellow
piles and crazy swallows
drive head first into window panes.
Let silence live, let it grow and
flourish like a huge mouth with no
tongue, let it swallow us whole.
Here in this cave of breath
and teeth, force will make us
mingle, twisting to avoid contact,
to remain pure, untouched and alone.
Agenda
~~~~~~
Gazing at sleepy face
Of wall clock creeping
Toward meeting's end
Or striving with words,
Shifting restless weight -
Language doled like heaps
Edging off cafeteria plates
Eaten or shoved aside.
Passing, slowly passing time.
Breathing Steam
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
For hours breathing steam with herbs
she opens like a cave before wind.
She casts spells. Hair on her neck rises,
skin tingles as though some hidden finger
traces interlaced designs, invisible tattoos.
She aligns herself with night and smoke.
In a vision, owls speak to her of sap rising
in the pines, and of the mysteries of mice
and grubs. Someone strikes a gong, and
sound ripples green against her ears.
Three times her fists close on empty air.
Count The Heads
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Demand whole blood,
Carve holes in the day.
Sharpen all the knives.
Help lift creamy cakes
Onto fragile plates.
If the weather dries
Slam shut the heavy
Doors. Weapons sing
Above cities of smoke.
Butterflies flit out into
misty air. Everywhere,
Everywhere, great roar of wind.
Durlabh Singh
GROW FINGERS
~~~~~~~~~~~~
And I grow fingers and thumbs to write more
The verses that do not follow straight lines
But zigzagging under the open skies
In chromed yellow sunlight
In canopy of the trees
Of the emerald green.
Deserts there are, heat exhausted creatures
Which demand to know the arrival of dawn
Within the hot sandy dunes loneliness resides
Seized in sounds of silences the wind sighing.
Winters I have seen, in interiors of people
Where motions are frozen in frigid bonds
And down pours from dark clouds echoes
The deaths of the moths on the frozen ponds.
Today I speak from depths of the being
From slits in roofs, from broken charades
From blood soaked minds under the bullets metallic
Or women singing their songs in mud soaked paddies.
Run with syrup on my parched lips
Or disappear in the immensity of the seas
Rain forested creatures wormed of nights
In wakeful of the myths for mutterings in dawn.
CHIEF SEATTLE ADDRESS
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
You asked me to
Sell my land
How could I sell my land
It would be like
Selling my mind
Selling the skies above
Presences in the airs
Sparkle of the waters
Memories in dark woods
Green meadows and
Sounds of humming bees.
Where sentry trees guarding the mists
Ghostly reflections of the sandy shores
The sap that runs through pine needles
The blood that courses through my veins
The heats generated by the shaggy pony
And my brothers bear, deer and the eagle soar.
The rivers are my brothers
They quench my thirst, they feed me
Show me kindness, live my life
Feel me heal me bathe me knead me.
The earth is my mother
She nourishes me flourishes me
Perfumes me with flowers
Feeds me with corn
Sings me lullabies
Feels me in her pain
Renews me clues me with mystery.
Do not force me to sell the spirits
My mother earth my brother river
My sister wind the sap in my brain
Gods of my visions heaven Striven
All my shores and the forest frames.
Durlabh Singh
ALCHEMIST
~~~~~~~~~
The night has been oppressive and Sharat has been dreaming- feverish dreams.
He has been dreaming
of alchemical ingredients. Mercury has been taking horrendous shapes and
these shapes have been
attacking him fiercely but whenever he took courage and tried to grab these
shapes as a matter of defiance,
they just melted into his hands & then took even fiercer shapes.
Mercury became a shining naked sword which plunged through the air, aiming
straight at his heart. He woke up in a scream, the perspiration bathing his
whole body in hot sweat.
Pale morning light was peeping through the chinks of his door & trying to
dispel the darkness within
the room. He wanted to find some relief from his ordeals of night and
decided to get up.
He went out. Against the soft blue skies, tufts of cotton wool clouds were
chasing each other in a
playful mood. Skylarks were doing an energetic morning dance with zigzagging
movements.
A cool breeze touched his feverish face & Sharat let out a sigh.
Since long his ambition has been to become an alchemist. This weird
ambition could not be traced
back to the reveries of his childhood as no one in his family was ever
familiar with the notion of alchemy.
He went from village trying to find a teacher. It was not easy an easy
matter as the science of alchemy was vouched in a secret language of
Sandhya Bhasya or the twilight language. A teacher will not disclose his
knowledge until he tested the pupil to the limits of his suitability ,
through hard & degrading trials. He spent considerable amount of time,
travel and money to search for such a teacher.
In the end, with someone's help he found such a teacher and for number of
years carried out laborious learning exercises as the first steps in the
acquiring the secret knowledge of the coded language.
Suddenly a wave of despair came over him and the universe dissolved into a
fog. A coldness entered his soul and slowly crept into all the corners of
his brain. A suffocating breath began to choke him turning him
into a sort of a standing stone amidst an indifferent landscape. Slowly this
rock began to enlarge till it filled the whole universe. A huge rock-
uniform, dark without an edge and he realized that there was no escape. The
whole universe became a massive stone which aimed to crush his mind and
body.
He felt dizzy and fell to the ground but slowly picked himself up and took
the road to the river which flowed outside the boundaries of his village. He
was unconscious of his surroundings. He paid no attention to the cows
grazing in the fields or to the chattering monkeys jumping overhead in the
canopies of trees.
Eventually he reached the river and stood on its banks. The muddy river
invited him to come in. Vapours of
moisture arose, hit his face, hit the rock within his brain. He just
wanted to remove that crushing burden.. He will end his existence and may be
the existence of the damned rock within his brain. He stepped into the
river.
The water came over his feet, to his knees, to his neck. His eyes could
see the murky darkness within the river. Water forced its way into his
nostrils and bubbles of his breath escaped drawing out his life force. The
water entered his brain crushing the rock into dark coolness. It was
soothing, a nice oblivion to die.
Through misty eyes he saw that he was lying on the bank of the river with
wet sand plastered all over his
face. A strong hand was pressing his back and then there were few loud
thumps and he vomited a lot of water. "Spit it out you foolish man" - a
strong female voice instructed him. He tried to turn up but the hand
was too strong for him and he surrendered to its force.
He vomited again. The sun was strong and he felt empty. He turned on his
back and looked up. A tall woman in green sari was bending over him and
cursing him for his foolish ways of trying to kill himself.
He felt like a stupid infant being instructed by teacher in classroom. He
was just a coward to end his
life in such a way.
The woman picked him up and put him over her shoulders, with his head
dangling over her back. All the time he was coughing and spitting water and
phlegm. After about ten minutes walk, she entered a small
cottage and then a room which was in total darkness. He was dumped on a cot.
Exhausted he fell asleep.
It was evening when he awoke. The last rays of the sun were trying to paint
the room with orange red colours. The sky was ablaze with the rage of the
dying day.
Through the corner of his eyes he saw the woman cooking something. A copper
vessel was gargling above
the fire and she was dropping some herbs into it. A pleasant smell arose.
His encroaching loneliness was pushed back momentary by the presence of
another human being. He began to shiver in his wet clothes.
The woman noticed his shivering and began to take off his wet clothes. He
protested but to no avail. She
wiped his body with a piece of rough cloth and then vigorously messaged his
feet, his palm and then his whole body. A little warmth began to run
through his body. She covered him with a blanket.
Warm herbal broth was brought to him with few pieces of bread which he ate
and enjoyed. All that kindness was new to him and so overwhelming and he
began to cry. He extended his arm to touch the woman and pulled her gently
towards him.
The woman lay beside him and enclosed him within her warm strong arms. He
felt a hunger for even a closer contact and began to kiss her hands, her
face and then his legs entwined her. He felt at peace and surrendered
himself to sleep and warmth.
Another morning arrived. He looked around and there was no sign of the
woman. He conjectured she must have gone to work. He had noticed her tools
of trade. She was a stone breaker doing a hard dusty job. Suddenly he wanted
to escape as he felt disgusted with himself. He has slept with a woman
below his caste.
But that was ridiculous, she was the only person that has shown any kind of
concern for him, perhaps closer to love. She had saved a total stranger from
jaws of death. Anyway who was he to judge people like that? He was a man who
could not even manage his own life.
Suddenly he felt that he did not belonged to any caste or creed anymore. He
was just an outsider. A wretched man without a name, without a caste;
rejected by the world, and even by death. He felt that has lost an infinite
world. He will go out and loose himself into the vastness of India, Unnamed
and unknown.
All poems copyrighted by their respective authors. Any reproduction of
these poems, without the express written permission of the authors, is
prohibited.
YGDRASIL: A Journal of the Poetic Arts - Copyright (c) 1993 - 2005 by
Klaus J. Gerken.
The official version of this magazine is available on Ygdrasil's
World-Wide Web site http://users.synapse.net/~kgerken. No other
version shall be deemed "authorized" unless downloaded from there.
Distribution is allowed and encouraged as long as the issue is unchanged.
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