First Love: How I Shattered The Shackles Of Propriety For The First Time. Poem by Seema joglekar

How the moonlight beamed over my window, spilling her pangs!
Entwined in my open tresses with secrets hidden like in the wilderness
of a dream, they rose like serpents ready to sink their fangs
into the depths of my anxiety, rearing to fight the darkness
of their color in your eye they set out before me.
Like the moon in a tug of war between the earth and the stars
Meaningless knots of indecision claimed me between
your place and mine.
A thought groped me from behind—that love dwells in the moment.
I tethered on the edge of gnawing jealousy as if caught
in a dust storm- What if your heart was won by the jostling blossoms
vying for your attention.
It startled a passion for speed drawn from the depths of inertia,
I felt the rush of a caged bird beating its wings to break free and
the anguish of the storm clouds in the bosom of the still hills.
I stirred with the supreme courage of the early bud of spring.
For the first time, my legs sang a tune of their own to reach
their crescendo at your door.
Love first set out seeking what it knew not leaving behind all
that it had known. Taking the slippery road replete with
every kind of deception to deter. She relentlessly went on
daring the arrogant spikes and spears of scorn sharpenened
on the monster wheels of spite. Taking it for jest she muttered
silent oaths at all the hurdles, steaming like hot coals,
enhanced to an adventure, like the gleeful stream encounters
in her eagerness to join the river.

To add to my dismay, my steps betrayed me echoing loud
like reverberations in a vacant hall. My heart beat wildly like drumbeats announcing a journey or war, my bracelets gave away my panic.
But I moved on pulled by the rhythm of your heart in tune with mine.
Thus mesmerized dragged by vines thicker than the tow of derision,
in a stupor, I reached your door.
Like the trees that bend in homage at dawn awash with sun rays
warming its heart, I let all my mind bend at your door, in salutation swore- -
“To lay my heart at your door, to be trampled at will, to show dignity
in the ensuing pain, to stand up unflinching to fate’s assault and battery with a smile, to suffer at thy will.
To meet each day and wrestle it to ground till it deigned to take me
closer to you. To carry the supreme confidence of love, to uphold
the utmost integrity of life come what may.
To the power in the frailest flower that stands up to nature in wait
for an answer to her invitation. To willingly don the crown of pain
that yielding to love awaits its return.”
Then I broke the shackles of propriety on the threshold of your door
like a priest breaks a coconut to awaken the gods.
Only to find you curled up asleep like a child with your door half open.
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