Near The Village Of Sacred Beasts Poem by Abhisek Bandopadhyay

The moon's
gone missing in the branches
and leaves enmeshed overhead, that
allow no light
to enter this place.
At times,
there's movement in the spaces
between your toes, while
you follow
the faintest sound of running water
at an unknown distance. And
as you try
to exert your way
through your surroundings,
there's too much in the way of
your body, your breath, your voice,
hair, eyelids, nails, teeth, and most of it
is neither soft to touch, nor too still, as
the forest constricts and
its trees close all about you, when
you remember that you weren't alone
when you got here... in
the melancholy of dying light
of a long-forgotten sunset; but
your bearers couldn't help
evanescing into the quiet cover
of oncoming darkness, along with
some friends you discovered, but find
much too far away to hear you
now. And somehow,
you feel it isn't
strange to be unafraid
of a light and palpable hold
upon your shoulder, because
of a familiarity so unconditional
as to flow from the very wellspring
of all things you are
or ever may have become.
But in time,
the abyss eclipses the intellect
and your senses begin to overlap, until
perchance,
your hand touches
the searching fingers
of a stranger, for
each to hold the other
in its reckless shelter, and
persist on
making a way through
this night, the savage brush, toward
the sound of what
you imagine to be a running stream
at some unknown distance.