LOVE REVISITED 

(published by Ed. Nissim Ezekiel 
in The Indian Pen, April-June, 1997)

You played many deadly games
with my growing years :
you , my love,
my past agony,
present tears
and future fears.

With your first look
demolished the watergates
of a over-flooding heart;
a song rose from the womb
of currents and crumbling pieces,
to a baffled mind
sheltered by a forest in fire
burning out fast into ashes.

With your first touch
earthquakes shook the soul;
stories of love
got carved at every pore
piping divine joy
and this body became so dear,
but soon afterwards
it was there no more
and Time became
the cause of my constant fear.

With your first kiss
on my lips
a hot-honeyed moon
burnt with a sweet fire ;
I wandered mad as noon
beyond bounds of Earth and Sky
to strange wild deeps
and thoughts soaring quite high
so thirsty for rain
from an endearing heaven
with hopes
for body’s release
from the chains
of constant pain !

Bound to this life
the petals of youth fade;
ageing with wounds and burns
downwards I spread
to the root
from which lives sprout;
but my tongue is drying up
as if in this year’s drought.

Come Love, fulfill me
don’t play this hide and seek.
Release me from chains
for upward rise of the soul sleek.

Comp. n copyright : saroj k. padhi