BRIDE IN WAIT

Dreams lurk in each corner of her bud-like eyes
With only two upper petals open to let light in
Into the soul of her thoughts that run amuck
Like imagination of a poet in love with jasmine ;

Half shed tears in rare a tryst with a smile in early bloom
Cast across the sky of her cherry cheeks tell
A story of severance from roots and at the same time
A new pact with destiny for a new life in to regale ;

Lost in sight of the apocalyptic vision of a crow
Swooping down to the breast of a flaming Palash
With its caw filling the morning air with lofty cries, 
When the koel's counter bursts forth giving joy in surplus !

Hours of silent communion spent on those rocks
At Barabati with eloquent whispers of wind 
From the hot pink bougainvillea in the behind
Have taken wings to two souls into a knot firmly bind ;

She waits for her love in each of her silent syllable 
On lips of a thumping heart , to her lover's heart to tumble .

@copy right: saroj k. padhi/ 27.02.15

STONE

I’m a piece of stone here

Fallen to the ground

From the wall of an ancient temple

With no personal sound,

But with silent echoes of years of biting loneliness

In absence of my soul’s love around,

In ruins that me surround

The voice of an eternity does  resound ,

In the hollows of my being

Letting the mellow afternoon wind to sing

In sounds of digging of artisan hands

That have been devoured by a greedy brown Earth

To be spewed across the shore of our living as common sands .

Today the surface of my unpolished body

Is being caressed by hands of a lonely Spring

Trying to revive the sensations of young love

With its familiar ring,

When Time’s camera veers away from my face

To reveal the weather-beaten face of eternity

Under severe attacks from arrows of Time’s harsh sling.

@ copy right : saroj k. padhi/26. 02. 15

ELEMENTS

Why am I always in love with excesses of elements?
Wind in excess that blows past 
your sweet soul , doesn’t fill my lungs 
nor me,
the aroma of your increasing desires therein
too doesn’t fulfill me !

Rains from the sky that falls drenching your name
And that my peacock soul drinks on ,
Doesn’t fully quench me !

Thoughts about you 
Hunger for more space in mind’s ether
Always vibrant with images of you,
Doesn’t even suffice for your complete view !

The dust in my mind sketching your image in air
Or memories scribbled by your aroused feet
On the body of Earth want to gobble more land
To accommodate more and more of you !

The fire of longing for you rises
Across centuries needing more and more of fuel
From my liquid soul pining for you !

Why do I need every element in excess
To feel you, to get you, to be one with you !
Who will tell why this way I love you !

@ copy right : saroj k. padhi/ 26/02/15

Sigh

One sigh from the corner

Of your eye

 At the fall of brow

Though slow ,

Is potent enough to break

An entire civilization,

And the Konark of my imagination--

That crumbles into slabs of loneliness

On dried grass of Summer

Away from the joys of waves

In sea of your eyes’ morning glitter

Where birds of my love flutter

With their endless chatter!

Was this a sigh of

Your inadvertent response

To the shadow of my evening

Or a reaction to my new birth in the offing ?—

I don’t know,

But I find myself poised now

Into an eternal wait,

For these occasional sighs

In fall of eyes

Thro’ my love to awake soon

To land of our new boon;

Not to forebode doom

But to transform them into new songs

of Love  in vernal bloom.

@ copy right :saroj k. padhi/ 25.2.15

TO SOMEONE’S HAIR

Night squeezes herself into a few drips of darkness

To jump and die into the cascades of your hair

Tumbling down to touch the fringe of my dreamy looks

Afloat in the air,

To rest at last on the waves of your walk

In a spirit sublime and fair,

Across time’s street into the forest of eternity

Echoing my love in tunes silent

From the strings of my new lyre .

Hold me before my breath is muzzled

By the intricacies of its webs

Turning in connivance with night

Into clammy cells of honey

Where love is a sweetened wonder

In smallest enclosures of dew in fire !

@ Copy right: saroj k. padhi

PRAYERS AT STEP—4

Awake to a nightmare I stumble

on the corridor of my broken dreams of the night

to find my house in ruins under a deluge from a black sea,

my roof and walls all gone in the sweep

of a super cyclone,

my breath biting earth of my homestead land

that smacks of Time’s defeat in the womb of an eternity;

when the seven sages from God’s land

appear with their look of compassion

and I rise to see God in eyes of a big fish floating

in the blue expanse of the sky

with slow drizzle of compassion from love soaked eye

telling me to go up the stairs

in search of the real sight lying a few more steps high.

@ copy right : saroj k. padhi 24/02/15

PRAYERS  AT  STEP-3

Sitting on the holy slab with half-shut eyes

under the light spell of a sky’s blue

as I try to think of how to meet you, my Lord 

 my heart skips a beat or two,

and in excitement as my eyes grope blank spaces,

a little bird from a nearby bush surprises

with a new song,

and tells me to go round those  bushes

with flowers red, white, pink, purple and blue,

pick up the wounded, wilted ones,

hold them close to my heart and pray

in tune with her song in its sweet, soft sway;

enchanting the wind  my broken strings to play--

in imitation of mythical songs of union with the divine

that you inspired to flow with eternal glow

in hearts of devotees like Dasia Bauri, Salabega ;

reinforcing my conviction thro’ profound songs of Bhakti raga…

I can see a hazy picture of my Lord beckoning me

From a distance very long,

I don’t know how  long it will take

for my song to assume the real aplomb .

@copy right : saroj k. padhi/ 24.02.15

PRAYERS AT STEP-  2

Being on the second step suddenly I remember

having forgotten about a holy bath

before I meet my Lord

for I have to see him with my inner eyes…

This bath under showers of rain from dew

dripping from twigs, leaves, petals and boughs

soaks deep inside,

to  cleanse the soul before I offer my prayer

for God to inspire the real view…

I sit down to chant my prayer

when aroma from clusters of mango buds

sweep the mind’s floor,

chatters of birds blow million conchs,

sounds from Grand Road die into whimpers

of mortal desires lost into an infinite blue ,

and the spell begins to quell the noise inside

under the cast of my Lord’s hue.

@copy right: saroj k. padhi/ 23. 02. 15

PETALS IN PRAYER—STEP 1  ( ON THE FIRST STEP )AGAIN

Petals that bled from wounds inflicted all over

from slings of hate, unconcern, jealousy and anger

wallow long in dark under night’s  thin cover

to wilt and shiver,

in my soul’s pocket under worries’ hot fever

as again I return to the first step after lisping a short prayer .

Putting the sacred dust to my fore head

I kneel to my lord praying for His kind pull

across time and space ,

when I listen to the cry of wounded shells on the nearby shore,

of turtles’ silent anguish with their breaths melting

into deathly cuddle of sands bleeding

under shadow of sentient Casuarinas whispering

about agony of thwarted love , about the noise of souls sinking

into dangerous quicksands of promises

made under the shade of those once- upon- a- time- erotic- trees,

about the pangs of hunger in the womb of  fishermen’s cottages

about the anguish of beggars on their daily whining carriages.

Let me hold my breath before I try putting my next step,

let me be poised in my mind and steadfastly hold on to my prayer

for I don’t walk  just a simple walk to my lord’s door with

offer of any drooping or artificial flower.

O lord, revive my crumpled flower back to its freshness

heal my distress to some extent so that I  glide to the next step

and achieve in my meditative journey somewhat  a little success .

@ copy right : saroj k. padhi 22/02/15

CRUMPLED  PETALS

As my liquid soul flows and pines to flow still more

 in rhymes of pent up agony from life’s constant blows--

in myriad forms of rudeness of unloving hearts galore,

 cruelties of  sadistic hands reeking of souls’ ugly sore ;

I fail to decipher million intricacies of your many designs

the mysteries under which this life of ours strangely signs ;

the enigma of wind caught  in fire, the endless replica of desire

the stories of hunger in midst of plenty and filth under shower ;

petals of my morning flower that awoke to many miracles--

of hot pink glories writ newly in hearts of  ecstatic lovers  ,

now droop like deodars under a scorching sun of summer

in the swelter of gasping throbs in heart’s secret chamber ;

don’t know when these petals crumpled as I put my first step

on the first of the twenty two steps leading to your sanctorum

I retreat again to refresh those petals with prayers’ fresh sprinkles

Not knowing when they will return to their shiny original twinkles  !

@copy right: saroj k. padhi /21.02.15

PETALS   IN   PRAYER

Wounded, my petals droop into a darkness

pervading in the garden

 illumining

moments of hurts and  betrayal ;

lilting to touch of balm in soft palms

of flowers absorbed in an evening prayer,

spreading incense from invisible souls

that burn under mists of doubts’ thick layer;

raising questions about the possibility

of those bleeding hours of past being able

to redeem  themselves in a purifying fire !

Breaths of flowers under night’s bower

take on a strange white tinge

from the spectre of day’s fire

that burned coagulated blood

while raising a crucial speculation --

as to how and when  all our dreams will

merge into a certain  peace of earth’s mire

bringing an end to all forms desire !!

Flowers chuckle to tunes

of birds in silence composing soul’s

new songs of a rising smokeless fire,

the moon comes down to my palms

to declare the end of all hurts

and the birth of a new silence

from womb of noisy thoughts

propelling the sentient night

to bask under a real  meaningful moment

of awakening into the flames of

a silent desireless desire !!!

@copy right : saroj k. padhi/ 21.02.15

BUNCHES OF FLAMES

Trees ablaze with love’s fire or studded with blooms of sweet desire !

These rising flames tell all about the passionate Spring’s story entire ;

As a boy as I climbed to their topmost branches , sucking in fresh juices

Watching river Birupa, with songs tumbling out of her secret sluices ,

Weaving dreams about my new golden ideas of more and more loots

from difficult bodies of thorny  bushes yielding berries from shoots ,

after drink from the river in love’s simple quiver sparkling in flashes

drenching face as I bent down to slap the waters to cute wild splashes .

Do not know when the flaming Palasa grew up so fast as to be abuzz

with scandals about my love doing rounds in their aroused branches,

in hums of  wild bees, in songs of breezes and birds’ excited screeches

in whispers of some dwarf trees around , about my heart’s secret itches .

The forest is awake now to many such stories of new love being written,

in hearts of new lovers drawn to dwell in such secret branches smitten--

by arrows from God of love at the advent of a new Spring and spreading

the myth of  Goddess Parvati cursing God of Fire who had disturbed her

in her privacy with her consort Lord Shiva and incurred her fiery anger.

Hence the God in flames of petals keeps writing stories of love in air

And keeps ablaze in million hearts love’s time- old sweet , lovely fire.

@comp. n copy right : saroj k. padhi/ 20.02.15

UBIQUITOUS LOVE

(S)He is Love in the womb of radiant  light

A profound feel of joy  at each soulful sight;

Always a thrill, even in a shrill bird- cry

Every word of love writ in heart of sky;

A rainbow that emerges thro’ tears of soul

A smile that rustles thro’ a leaf’s rise and fall;

A  silent glory writ in heart struck with love

A water-less rain drenching love’s cute dove;

On wall of pining heart a nameless eternal blob

A silent pang in remote corner of every throb ;

A peace that rises from tears of wordless love;

A bliss eternal in endless showers from above.

@ copy right : saroj k. padhi/ 19.02.15

WOUNDED  PETALS

Why do there some wounded petals always haunt me

Especially in my hours of loneliness when the wind sings

In voices of shells robbed of their precious shiny pearls ,

When hunger in shrunken bellies gives out pathetic calls ?

In such moments of distress petals show their lovely faces

In colours of coagulated blood oozed from animals sacrificed

At shrines, staining so called civilized human blood with vices,

Sending stars into piteous cries in breast of a sky fleeced ;

Cursing  mankind with a bleeding moon on the forehead !

The petals whisper on about the nightmares lurking in night

Broken in the twig they tend to overtly withdraw from sight

I suffer thus from pangs of petals crushed, in their sorry plight,

Who will bring the petals of my roses back to their breath right

Who will bring an end to their sobs, tears, anguish and fright ?

@copy right : saroj k. padhi / 19.o2.15

FLAME

Spellbound, the stars gaze at the flame

Rising to the top of hearts’ Shiva temple

Bringing an end to our wait for peace,

Making life a prayer earnest but simple ;

Where spring of joy is in a constant flow

From a conviction in a rising compassion,

Where light of love burns crusts of desires

Raising the sentient soul to a  final vision ;

Of the understanding of the glory of life as

A flicker of that light at the top that splays,

In the wind, fighting all vague shadows

In dance of fire that the Lord sweetly plays,

Uniting all images in sanctum of the Heart

Of God who prevails at the end and at start.

! saroj k. padhi/ 18.02.15

FLIRTING  WITH  MY  LOVE

ONE evening while flirting with my Love

I said “Why do you always compare me with Moon ?

Do you think I like it? In fact I hate that Moon

that comes in between so often us late or soon

while I’m enjoying love’s timeless boon ;

like this garland of tuberoses on my braid

look, how it blunders on  to my face again and again

while you try to taste the plum on my lips,

the naughty Wind  pouts in taking half of my joy away.

Look how your divine touches are made to drift away

by a conspiratorial Moon and a naughty wind

handling whom so difficult it I find

except this Kadamba tree

that truly loves me.”

Do you know Govind, when you are not around

Thousand grape soft hands of yours do my body surround

With flying  kisses from his falling leaves

Under whose shower my love breathes ,

I smell you in his bark, boughs and his soul in beams

I love you in the whispers of his supple dreams

His liquid soul drips onto my breast in drops of tear

When after a long absence with him I’m  there.”

At this my eternal lover smiled like my shivering love-tree

And for all this He is perhaps jealous now not to leave me.

@ copy right : saroj k. padhi/ 18.02.15