Panchali Poem by umashankar manthravadi

we have only the hook under the tongue
to guide us
painlessly
through the last frothing shoal
till it broke I did
not know it was glass
the great shards that linked
star to star when they
fell out of the clear
black sky last winter

ah well it's broken
and there's no mending
as long as I did not know
the hard unyielding edges
of my universe
I could live in its soft centre
I was never one to search
for my origins
and only accidentally
stumbled on my present misgivings

all summer the grass
no longer growing
hard as the land on
which it stood waited
a dry fuse that would
burn the dry hooded hills
if there was that spark

I had stumbled in the hollow dark
of the dry year ending
and cut myself
on the unseen glass of anonymous happenings
and the dry spiked glass that did not burn

in the absence I
held sand in arms
warm and loud till it
rained 1 dug my hands
into yielding lands

between the glass walls and the floor
a spider builds a web
defining limits that had not existed

in time anyone can
a hand breaks through the
glass and web
bleeding
hand that searches the
corners of the bowl
bleeding hands lead us
bleeding hands lead us
blindly through the storm
bleeding hands search
for faces feel for my
eyes touch the corners
of my mouth
bleeding
bind us give warmth

but I am hiding
in the silence dark
from the hand that broke
through glass and web

till the glass broke and the hook caught
there was no wind
mine was tightly contained
in the skin I had grown
in time anyone can
grow back skin and bone
for the present
led only by the hook under the tongue

do not colour this
big bent pin hanging
from an irksome thread
with an emotion
it is inanimate
these are drowned stones
ancient and rounded
surfacing in the
drying breaking mud
here all wells are dry

brother or husband
or son O krishna
we all grow moist
at the sight of the male

each broken walled well
is chained to its patch
of harsh breaking sky
its cracked convex floor
harbours odd stones snakes
in grass that is dry
yellow topped still
growing at the roots

I have held five men
in my arms and yet
she said O krishna
there is another

rain pledged to the roof
a promise drummed on
tin
coequally
the sun and squally
bright clouds shining on
wet roofs wet roads
each
hoofpool in steaming
still ridged land shining
back promisingly
associations
are apparently
always present free
presently
freely
wheeling a white kite
high and calmly in
its fast flat glide is
unseen by the brown
scampering eyes
then
in one featherfull
movement it is dark
spanning shadow and
steel tearing my back

my back
is always
in a black dreading
sensitive to the
light and dark
dread
settling
of hand on my
back

apparitions
ghost trees green fingers
that claw and climbing
grow roots into skin
climbing clawing down
greedily to earth
apparitions seen
in bright summer rain

I have grown cunning
I have
a little
plotting is my sign
of attentiveness
I blow some smoke at
a cockroach intent
at sharing
watch it
scamper from my glass
I am not dirty
minded
not even when
your legs are so far
apart
having learnt
to lie quietly in
my sweat and not wait
for the wind to turn
I hope I have not
grown
too uncaring

nothing happens that
suddenly
sun moves
north every day
till it streaming
in through one open
window and three doors
suddenly aligned
it is
not suddenly found
but one day you have
been breathing acid
air for too long and
your fingers cannot
uncurl any more
fingers
resembling
the pickled hands of
the ancient dead
one moment you still
believed patience was
all that was needed
and in the next
light
changed
the moment you
stepped out of the dark
it was all greys and
there were no shadows
only the desires
of a hand that was
amputated
not
anything that
sudden
not moving
but growing
all grey

I touched a sleeping
face
and it was cold
there was no inflection in
the voice that said no
but
I could not get up
to walk the stiffness
out of my legs

you and I have a
secret don't we
don't
tell any body
I will look across
the room and we will
fly over the crowd
until we come back
squabbling like sparrows
building their nests

[in
a tale told by an
old woman there is
an old woman who
had no firewood and
she put her legs in
the stove and cooked
she
was apparently
quite cheerful about
this
the story was
anyway]
we are
building nests out of
the feathers that we pluck
out of each other
that is our secret

these are the limits
a web spun against
the sun
a silence
drawn from the unfelt
glass floor to the unseen
walls
unchanged face
of desire
denial
of desire
denial
of what was desired
I sometimes wonder
if I may not be
the village idiot
humoured
upon a
whim
by an entire
universe
I dreamt
that my hair was kempt
I cannot withdraw
cannot disappear
dryly into my
clothes
I am not spent

if you are a stranger
why do you stop?
if you do not know me
why do you smile?
hooked across the street
an eye caught in
the act of asking
I had crossed the street
to coarse dark nipples
unrestrained
freely
given
unstraining
face
I asked blindly
across the street
would
you hold me glass hard
in the cave of glass
dragged under a tree
splintered against the sweat
a well filling at
the sight of the cloud

you said no
and in the nest of strangers
I had stumbled in the hollow dark
dry year ending


-August 21,1974