Triasha Mondal |
Lord,
As I open these assailed lids, I sing a simple prayer in my dark repose.
I have rummaged through sacred books to avenge my sacrilegious biddings and trudged on frantic lanes to hear your ancient birth cry in Bethlehem.
In your heavenly court there are masterly singers, but I bid you listen to this tune of earnest mortal melancholy.
My oldest paramour,
I have loved you for longer years than I have lived,
When as a child I opened my acanthine lids, you played with me under the jet streaks in the blue church sky, releasing me from the fustian cloister of the cruel Cromwell’s control.
My seven years and seventy has found fruition fulsomely-
Until in the silent temple of the night, life in me had ebbed.
I stand under an air of jaded sullenness,
Remembering tentatively, the endless occasions in which I have wished a peaceful retirement into your encircling arms.
For Lord, what glory do you count in such savage neglect?
The heart in me has sickened and dies as the land dies,
And in life’s full surrender,
I stand in my decomposing physiognomy in the chant of a name; that is beloved.
I have crossed islets and glaciers hypnotized by your inviting flutesong,
For which I have joined many martyrs on this stable sea of peaceful rest.
You have attended to my pleasures and pains in lone hours and lengthened sentiments as
Kali, Shiva, Durga, Narayana
But now is when I must retire to eternal slumber for I have been awake long abandoned, by some ancient nomad tribe.
Leave the gates of heaven;
Oh how clement and temperate must it be there!
To come to the door of my lonely house.
Living was a role and I have played my part masterly.
O merciful Avenger, take pity in my heartsickness, entreat me to peace.
As I lay me down to sleep, you have unfolded my simple history to torment me further,
My father muttering a prayer for my chance revival,
The natural ruby of my mother’s eyes exploding in a feverish glimmer,
Let not I be distracted further by such cruel machinations of heart,
My ship must sail tempestuous tides, to where you will reveal your true self to me;
Call my name playfully, cradle me tenderly:
“এইতো আমি, ধরা দিলাম..”
Here! You have found me.
{Key: Kali, Durga, Shiva, Narayana are icons of Hindu Divinity}