821 | TALE OF A FAITHFUL WIFE

Picture by Germain Droogenbroodt

Tale of a Faithful Wife

When you winged to a distant land of blue mountains,

I didn’t weep badly as faithful wives do,

didn’t indulge in fictional loneliness like a few,
for you left your body odour with me.

I, in our nest on laburnum top,

awaiting the small bites of love

you might bring for me.

Bathed in morning light, I start my day,

turning leaves of holy scriptures; all be well.

For lunch daily waiting for friends,

in lazy afternoons, thoughts draw crisscross of light and shadow.

When stars are the neighbours, who could quarrel with the moon?

Where’s the chance to be sad?

Clouds teach me to fly.

But that evening when the guffaw of wind entered my room

and overturned my candles,

in evening prayers I understood,

far away from me, the ribs of my love,

were being broken mercilessly.

That night came the first rain of the year

 and from that day, rain falls

to write a whole book of unfeigned sorrow.

Beauty soothes little, the desolate heart,

laburnum top is now my burning pyre.

Tamali Neogi, India