The Indian Way Poem by Jayanta Mahapatra

The long, dying silence of the rain
over the hills
opens one's touch,
a feeling for the soul's substance,
as for the opal neck
spiralling the inside of a shell.

We keep calm; the voices move.
I buy you the morning's lotus.

we would return again and again
to the movement
that is neither forward nor backward,
making us
stop moving, without regret.

You know:
I will not touch you, like _that
until our wedding night.