Unburdening Song

Like the East Wind
You came to recount
The heart-rending tales that
The tear-filled Godavari told the sea.

Stunned like the tree
Anguished for the very breezes of life
I opened my mouth.
Has some invisible hand stood between us?
Are we, decreeing injunctions on ourselves,
Turning mute?
To avoid your sight
I swallowed  tear streams
Down my throat.
All day long tears continue to pierce my throat.

Now, this night,
The night when the sea has taken
Godavari into its lap and is consoling,
Composing tunes, that have gone discordant
In sighs.
Breathing into my repressed, harmonium-like heart
With two hands.

I washed my whole face
With the elegy surging from memory.
Now there are no more thorns in the throat
Nor in the eyes.
On this bridge of abyssal time
Between us
– We could not open mouths to converse –

This unburdening lyric I delivered.

This may reach you either as a bird or flower
Or even as a mad breeze.

Won’t you be soft in response?

UNBURDENING SONG