‘I am stone, barely warmed by the fire’: These poems merge inner and outer worlds, ephemeral moments

Farewell by the river

Except for a neighbour, we were alone.
She gazed at me, opened her mouth reluctantly
for the pomegranate juice,
then waved it away; focused on
her last breath – a deep breath
drawn in, as her eyes closed.
In this holy town on the banks of the sacred Ganga
The lone crematorium was electric, the wait long.
We sat by the dusk-dappled river – its sluggish currents
heavy with earthen lamps, flotsam, grief.
Our turn. She was laid on the ground.
A priest hovered, chanting mantras of liberation.
A grandson fed her closed mouth joss sticks,
tulsi leaves, sandalwood, clarified butter …
then spooned butter all over her body.
I thought she would awaken, wave it all away
as unnecessary – like her life lived
on bare necessities.
Temple bells rang in a relay in the distance.
On rails, they slid her into a heated oven.
My heart hammered like a bell clanging for
my mother.
When her ashes cooled, an earthen pot
set them afloat on the holy river,
the currents coursing now with purpose,
carrying her away on a strong flow
lit by lights from a town on the other shore.

Leaving shadows behind

Less hunger, more a craving of taste buds;
an itch beneath the skin; unscratchable –
midnight-prone, satisfying neither itch nor hunger;
like filling an internal storage tank that leaks
for completing incompleteness.
Spilling into other hungers: justice for minorities, the poor;
like filling an external storage tank that leaks
for completing incompleteness.
So a search for clear thinking
but a hunger for clear articulation
for the skin must shine even if the soul does not.

An evolving hunger –
to be lotus-like, inured to stagnant murk,
opening slowly in pink blissfulness.
At peace in the midst of murk
free of it, free of thoughts of it.
Free.
Not craving love but loving unfalteringly,
abidingly like in a dreamless sleep without end.
Reaching for the sun,
lotus shadows falling away.

Memory shaft

In a forgotten cupboard
a musty album, acid free black pages
separated by bruised tissue paper.
Black and white photos,
watermarked, faded by time.
Two girls in pigtails – one towering,
the other shrinking into a limp curtain.
Photo after photo – one towers, the other cowers.
I never knew
a lifetime of sibling rivalry
could lead to spasms
of love.

Letting in the sun

Writes Virginia Woolf:
”I thought how unpleasant it is to be locked out; And
I thought how it is worse, perhaps, to be locked in.”
I may try a key that opens the window and lets in the muck.
Just enough muck before I shut it again,
so the muck can settle and the stream flow clear.
Just enough shut time, just enough muck time
before I open the window again
to let some sun stream in.
The sun shines –
makes no distinction
between things
inner
and
outer.

Nadir

This thought of dying I either ignore or give in to,
feel its shroud
tight as a vice, disabling breath.
Or like a capsized raft with waves breaking over me.
Calmly enclosing or fiercely breaking?
Fiercely breaking.
Glints of tranquil sun in the water turn my screams
into mute bubbles of spit and foam.
Fear feels like concentrated energy.
Irresistible.
Great grey waves suck me up and bounce me back
to the seabed, again and again
till I am battered and winded.
A sharp pain shoots up from the top of my chest.
My lungs or heart must have dislocated.
Someone, somewhere have mercy.
This is not the surrender I had heard bandied about.

Incandescence

Ramana expounds:
The process of purification is unseen.

Coal takes long to ignite.
Charcoal kindles sooner.
And with gunpowder,
it is spontaneous.

I am stone, barely warmed by the fire.
Sometimes, a moth –
spiralling towards the radiance.

Will it hurt? Will I scream?

Delicate wings crisp to cinders.
The blaze demands self-destruction
of a patterned body hiding in the day
of a moth brain spinning through the night.

Excerpted with permission from The Art of Unboxing, Neera Kashyap, Red River Press.