Conversations with Eduardo*

Yes, Eduardo, I understand,
the woman between my eyelids has robbed me of sleep.
This woman, Eduardo,
let me tell you,
is clothed in the finest garments,
she puts to shame the moon,
her glances, Eduardo,
are more serene than moonlight,
her tears clearer than dew.

Eduardo, you must understand,

I don't want to sleep again.
I want to undress this woman
who undresses me with so much ease

I confess:

there are times she reveals
and times when the mad logic of love
unclothes.

At times like that, Eduardo,

I have seen her naked,
been dazzled by that corporeal light
seen that beauty-drenched body glow,
been robbed of words.

Then there have also been times,

not very many though,
when I've undressed that divine nakedness
moved beneath the garment called skin.
breathed the air of her lungs
and seen that very human piece of flesh
that is her heart,
palpitating like yours and mine,

She's fragile, Eduardo,

like tomorrow.
and flawed like the revolution,
scarred like the map of my country
and yours too, Eduardo.

I walk endlessly in the delirium of my insomnia,

I can't forget, for my eyes are a barred gate
that refuses amnesia.
She's stuck in my throat, Eduardo,
and it is not that I want to ask her to leave,
need I even say?

*"I can't sleep. There is a woman stuck between my eyelids. I would tell her to get out if I could. But there is a woman stuck in my throat." (From "The Book of Embraces," by Eduardo Galeano)

[From the collection 'Threads', shortlisted for the Gratiaen Award 2007]

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A love-note

Love is a single word-drop causing ripple to roll
into wave
into storm
into whirlwind;
and love’s end-note
a tear
that disappears
into a nonchalant ocean. 
And that, love
is the beginning and end
of heartbeat narratives.

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Another Dawn Song

It is the most ancient story: The long night ends,
the dawn breaks
and all equations are erased
beyond recognition
and sometimes beyond recall,
need we insist?
It is the first story of the future
the threading that heralds unraveling
and weaving
of the day’s unplanned tapestry.
It is morning here
and night there
for some ‘you’ of someone’s story,
anyone’s tale
but this neither-here-nor-there
is peak enough to see far
either into the long yesterday
or the endless tomorrow
or both.
it’s a choice-point,
immemorial and holy.

[Inspired by the photography of Hiranya Malwatta and published in 'The Nation', March 4, 2012]

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My everyday dawn song

When I pick the vathu sudda I pause and meditate
it is the time for pick-leave,
what to keep and what to take
who to take away and who to let be
breaks to break
and so I get
from the nondescript vathu sudda
the contours of our human solitude
the loneliness in crowd
the self-containment
and the perishability
of all things:
Puppham milāyāti yathā idam me
Kāyo tathā yāti vināsa-bhavam.*

*Just as these flowers fade, so too will our bodies be subjected to decay.


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Moon thoughts

Twice framed:
The beeralu of the bedroom
and the lunumidella
in its singularity
of branch composition;
twice framed
and once blurred
in the scattering of clouds,
the part moon was orange last night
and fell in bits and pieces
through foliage and carpentry-curve.
Stepping out the poetic orange dropped
in different shape and size
through mango and kohomba
and cloud-blur,
and I
eager recipient and light reader
wondered:
what patterned and coloured comforts
fell on or bypassed
an inmate and a soldier,
bylaws and leniency
those easy to get to
but hard to change places
of our collective infirmities,
but moon fell like rain
and rained and rained
unburdening the sorrows
of our human infirmities.

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Ode to punctuation

And she came in the dawn light
like the many times revisited
first page
of a one-page story
ending with the three dots of longing
and hope
and there she stayed for a while
and kissed away
to puncture dream
with the blessed punctuation
of two kisses
leaving the timeless life-ending mark
of love
.

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A candle-wick song

Protector and victim
lit and then forgotten
and framed in light.
lover of flame
collector of devotion’s inevitable residue
let me name you now:
you are carpenter without stool
cultivator who goes hungry
writer robbed of words
mechanic without a car
voter without representation
a memory erased from the hard disk of surviving,
property-less householder
whose burning is celebrated
with hand-clasp and prayer
disposable and disposed thread
propped by the perishable
and yet alas
survivor,
how much like us
in this sansara.

[Inspired by the photography of Hiranya Malwatta]

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