SPINACH  GARDEN

Cutting common spinach for the frying pan

is an affair of the hand involving more of my heart

than the taste buds of the tongue, always reminding

me of that newly wedded day when a trickle of blood

oozed from your freshly cut mehendi –coloured finger,

sending a young  heart into a secret tremor;

I kissed the bleeding  finger and you shied away

knowing little about the magic of eros in green leaves

that drew me closer to the gate of your blood streams;

making me a captive of your girlish love trickling

to the lawn of my body transpiring before vanishing

into moon beams sprinkled on white petals of night

where we were left with folded hands bereft of  sight;

now I see the spinach leaves without lushness

wilting to a remote corner

with desires drying on the bed of river Alaka,

the honey-moon flowers sizzling with heat from a harsh Sun

that prods the dear of love like a hungry tiger in the old lawn;

times have changed changing the nature of love perhaps

when I see love through our anger at times speaking

like two tired soldiers, we to the camp fire retreating

not knowing anything about the truce signed by an unseen hand,

keeping mum for hours and then returning to the familiar haunt

where like two babies  we quarrel over the issue of softer pillow

still in an unknown ecstasy , not knowing the pulls from below;

let us desire for the flow more than the river, the sun or the shiver

but for the spinach and the quiver, the common cold and fever

if that can keep us wide awake beyond time and  part us never .

comp. n copy right : saroj k. padhi

27/12/14