There Was A Time When We Used To Wait For Shiva's Bridegroom Party To Come To On Shivaratri Poem by Bijay Kant Dubey

We used to wait for the bridegroom party
To come to during the night of Shivaratri
Together with my mother, aunt and brothers,
The matted sadhu dressed as Shiva
And one non-poisonous snake rounded around his neck
And he bare-bodied and with bhasma lines on the forehead
Going on a rickshaw
With the trishula and the kamandala
And in the loincloth
And the people following voicing sometimes
Har Har Mahadeva,
Har har Mahadeva,
Om namah shivay,
With the band, petromax light and firecrackers
On foot
And we hoping against hope to see
The play of Nature,
Where his mythic ghosts, goblins, monkeys,
Lions, bears, gales and storms
To add to a supernatural spectacle to the ceremony?