On Seeing the Empty Bed of My Wife
K. Padmakumar *
Was I wide awake
Or was it a dream?
Saw I the empty bed of my wife
Covered by a bedspread patterned with flowers
of different colours ,
The flowers of different colours took on a lively hue
Gradually it glistened like it glittered with gold.
The quiet place where the empty bed was lying
Looked like a neat and clean little room,
The silvery hue rippled the midnight hour,
I was in a state of numbness, and felt a presence
behind it,
I heard a faint echo of deep breathing
From the bed all empty.
Like a thing seen in the dull moonlight
Her image began to appear on the screen of my
heart of hearts,
I do not know if I had a doze, much to my surprise
I caught a glimpse of her passing me by
I know even the colour of her shawl
Clearly, I saw her in the flesh!
She called me like she called in real life
Even the chirping of crickets of the night
Seemed to stop for a few moments.
This is a knot tied to the very soul of my being,
And I would not be able to undo it in this life.
How short this long, long life looked
And time would be too short for words in my
love's ear alone.
The hot prick of a thorn that I would pick up across the
path towards Hades
I was made to forget it through her dance,
She quenched the flames of my inner thirst
With the temptation from the realms of gold.
One day in a moment of intimacy
She showed a ray of light in the dark
Said she: An illusion – that's it.
Who would foretell the lives of a man and a woman
Who would answer how the two would meet!
In this dark, curved and wavy path of life
When you saw me at a loss
One day she popped out before me
Not at the gate, not on the surface of the earth
but in the high treetop
She indicated her address with her finger
And I saw her name engraved on a piece of plank.
We were sitting together in the verandah of a small house
No soul was seen; no sound heard
On the brink of light and shade, and in the dim light
From some loose pages
I tried, slowly and haltingly, to spell some words out,
After listening to it carefully, she looked at me
And told me in a sweet voice
No, we do not offer obeisance unto Krishna and
then unto Radha
We do offer obeisance unto Radha and then to Krishna.
(Translated from my late father's Eigi Nupigi Ahangba Phamung Ubada by K. Radhakumar)
* Poem written by K. Padmakumar ; Translated by K Radhakumar which was published at The Sangai Express
This poem was posted on January 02, 2015.
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