CHITRAVATI

She flows by

The east of the City of Peace;

Or, once she was a river,

Running over the entire bed

From source to destination,

Washed the shores of grime

With her cool compassion.

But now she’s a name, a shadow,

A scarred stretch of wild growth,

And half burnt human bones.

Once He came here,

Day after day, and His soft fingers

Dug up sands for hot delicacies,

Charged deities, bands of love and hope,

To plant a new life in a dug up heart,

Blueprint for a new resurrection.

She saw it all, and her rippling waters

Sang duets with the wind

Which joined her in rare ecstasy.

He called them for a picnic,

For a dialogue on Nothing,

Or to mirror himself

In the heart of Chitra which stood still.

When He stepped into her bed

She caught His soles

In her swirling fingers, and tickled them,

And when He stepped out,

She carried the touch all the way

To multiply green growth.

She is clogged, dried, and forgotten now;

Somewhere they cut her veins

To steal her blood, and

A heartless city of brick and mortar

Hungry for her sands

Scraped her ribs, stifled her

With its debris and drains,

With its noise and crimes,

With its frozen devotions.

We have no time to hear her tales,

We have no ears to hear her groans,

We have no eyes to see

How a river of overflowing life

He planned with His liquid love

Is fast losing herself in a desert.

           -------------------------