I Won't Let You Go (23 page)

The father returned from the crematory.

    The boy of seven – his body bare, a gold amulet round his

neck – was alone by the window above the lane.

    He was unaware of his own thoughts.

    The morning sun had just touched the tip of the neem tree in

front of the house opposite.        A man selling green mangoes came

to the lane, called several times, then went away.

    The father came and took his little boy in his arms.        The little

boy asked: ‘Where’s Mummy?’

    The father lifted his head upwards and said: ‘In heaven.’

That night the father, weary with grief,        sobbed intermittently

in his sleep.

    A lantern glimmered by the door.        A pair of lizards kept

watch on the wall.

    The room faced an open terrace.        At some point the little boy

went outside and stood there.

    All around him the houses with their extinguished lights looked

like guards at a giant’s palace,        sleeping in a standing position.

    The naked child stood staring at the sky.

    His bewildered mind was asking a question of someone: ‘Where’s

the road to heaven?’

    The sky didn’t answer;        only the stars trembled with the dumb

darkness’s tears.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and others –

       they come so fast, so fast.

I suppose their fathers must be owners

       of vast motor cars.

But Sunday, but Sunday –

       why does she delay?

Slowly, slowly she walks

       after all the other days.

Her home beyond the skies –

       is it further than the homes of the others?

    Like you, Mum, she must be

    the daughter of a poor family.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and others –

       all hell-bent to stay.

They won’t go home. Amazing

       how they simply won’t go away!

But Sunday, but Sunday –

       someone treads on her heels.

Every half-hour they ring the hour!

       What a flurry! She keels!

In her home beyond the skies

       has she more chores than the others?

    Like you, Mum, she must be

    the daughter of a poor family.

Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, and others –

       grim-faced old stewpots!

They don’t like little boys. With us

       they are always cross!

But as I get up in the morning

       at the end of Saturday night,

who should I spy but Sunday,

       her face lit up by a smile!

How she cries when she says goodbye

       and gazes with yearning at us!

    Like you, Mum, she must be

    the daughter of a poor family.

I don’t remember my mother.

     Only this: sometimes when I’m at play,

        suddenly, for no reason at all,

a tune begins to buzz

        and ring in my ears,

and my mother comes

        and merges with my play.

Maybe she used to sing,

        rocking me.

She has gone

        and left her song behind.

I don’t remember my mother.

     Only this: when in Ashwin

        at dawn among shiuli trees

the scent of their flowers

        is borne by the dewy breeze,

somehow then she comes back to my mind –

        my mother.

Long ago perhaps she gathered shiulis,

        filling her basket.

So the scent of Puja

        returns as her scent.

I don’t remember my mother.

     Only this: when I sit by the window

of my bedroom

        and look at the far blue sky,

it seems to me my mother’s looking at me

        with steady eyes.

Long ago she used to hold me on her lap

        and look at my face.

That’s the look she has left

        in all the sky.

‘I won’t forget,’ I had said, when your moist eyes

had silently gazed at my face. Forgive me if I did forget.

Ah, that was such a long time ago! On that day’s kiss

so many madhabi petals of early spring

fell in layers and withered, so many times

noon’s dove-cooings pressed weary sleep,

going and returning. Your black eyes’ gaze

had written on my spirit that letter of first love,

so shy, so nervous! On that autograph of your heart

restless lights and shadows have through the hours

waved their brush-strokes, so many evenings have splashed

golden oblivion, so many nights have left

their own dream-writings in crisscrosses of faint lines,

covering it quite. Each minute, second going by

leaves its souvenir-script upon the mind,

like the deformed doodlings of a heedless boy,

each obscuring the other, weaving amnesia’s net.

If this Phalgun I have perchance forgotten

the message of that earlier Phalgun, if the flame

has silently died on grief’s lamp, forgive me then.

Yet I know, because you had once appeared,

harvests of song had ripened in my life,

which continue; once the light of your eyes

had played its vina, wringing the innermost notes

from sunlight itself. Gone is your touch,

but what a touchstone you have left within my heart,

which shows me still, at times, the undying

panorama of this universe, makes me drink

causeless joy’s full cup. Forgive my oblivion.

I know you had once called me into your heart,

which is why I myself forgive my own fate,

forgetting all those miseries, those griefs

which it has heaped on my days: how it has snatched

thirst’s water-cup from my lips, conned me with smiles,

betrayed my confidence, suddenly upset

my laden ship within sight of shore: all I forgive. 

You are no more. You have hopelessly receded.

Evenings are mournful, charged with your smothered vermilion.

My mateless life in an empty house has no grace.

All this I accept, and above all, that you were here once.

The more you heap my hands

    with the coins of love,

won’t it expose the more the deceit’s depth

    that’s within me?

Better for me to pay my piling debts

    and sail away in an empty boat.

Better that I should starve and you withdraw

    your heart filled with nectar

        and go away.

To dull my pain

    I might wake it in you;

to lighten my load

    I might press it on you;

my anguished cry of loneliness well might

    keep you awake at night –

such are my fears, why I don’t speak freely.

    If you can forget,

        please do.

On a lonesome trail I was, when you came along,

    your eyes set on my face.

I thought I’d say, ‘Why not come with me?

    Say something to me, please!’

But all of a sudden, as I gazed at your face,

    I felt afraid.

I saw a dormant fire’s secret smoulder

    in the obscure depths

        of your heart’s darkest night.

Anchoress, should I suddenly fan

    the flames of your penance into a blazing fire,

wouldn’t that stark light slash all veils asunder

    and lay my poverty bare?

What have I got to offer as sacred fuel

    to your passion’s sacrificial fire?

Therefore I say to you with humility:

    With the memory of our meeting

        let me return alone.

There on the plain, on the way-side, an animal’s skeleton

       is lying on the grass,

the same grass that had once given it strength

       and gentle rest.

They lie, bleached bones in a heap,

       time’s loud dry laughter,

like death pointing its finger, insinuating:

       Where the beast ends

    there you end as well; there’s no distinction;

    in your case too, when life’s wine’s been drained,

I said: Death, I don’t believe what you say

      mockingly of emptiness.

My life’s not the sort that becomes a total pauper

      at its journey’s end,

      that at the end of the day

pays with hollow bones its last bill of board and bed.

All that I’ve thought and known, spoken, heard with my ears,

    all that has burst from me in sudden songs

    were not contained in a life hemmed by death.

        What I’ve received and what I’ve given back –

        on this earth of mortals where can that be measured?

Many a time has my mind’s dance transcended

life and death, and gone where beauty lives

    eternally. Can it then stop for ever

            at the boundary of bones?

    My true identity

    cannot be measured by flesh.

The hours and minutes don’t wear it out by their kicks,

    nor does the wayside dust pauperise it.

For in the lotus of manifest form I’ve drunk the honey of the formless,

in the bosom of suffering found the dwelling of joy,

    heard within me the voice of eternal silence,

seen the way of stars through the dark empty spaces.

       No, I’m not a big joke of the Creator,

not a grand holocaust built with infinite riches.

Flowers of laughter she brought, and I

    the fruits of suffering’s monsoon piled in a basket.

And I said to her, ‘If we do an exchange,

    tell me who’ll be the loser!’

The beauty laughed, mightily amused,

    and said, ‘Come, let’s do it!

Have my flower-chain. Let me take your fruits

    filled with the juice of tears.’

I looked at her face, and right enough

    a belle dame sans merci she was.

She picked up my basket of fruits, laughed and clapped,

    mightily amused.

I took her garland of flowers,

    pressed it to my breast.

‘Mine’s the victory!’ she cried, and never stopped laughing

    as she scampered off.

The sun, he meanwhile clambered to the zenith 

    to burn the earth.

The hot day ended. In the evening I discovered

    that all my flowers had perished.