Sublime Love Poem by P K Joy

With all my faults
You love me still!
What a sublime love!
I realized it late.
I saw you standing
With tear-shedding eyes
And feebly waving,
At the airport’s gate.

Obviously, you came
For a final glimpse.
That I hated to see you,
You didn’t seem to care.
I was leaving India,
With my newly wedded wife
To migrate to Australia,
To start a life there.

You had been my wife
For half a dozen years.
For suspected infidelity
I obtained legal divorce.
You had humbly implored
In all earnestness,
To believe your innocence.
But my belief I didn’t reverse.




I’d seen you in a man’s arms.
The man was your cousin.
Such intimacy and caresses,
As innocent I couldn’t take.
I took your picture together,
Turned you out and yelled:
‘Adulterous harlot! Out.
Never, never to be back’

I heaped your clothes, etcetera,
Near the road side
And set fire to them
With uncontrollable anger.
Onlookers laughed,
Urchins sung and danced,
Neighbours whispered and jeered,
As I let the fire leap higher.

Badly I humiliated you,
And brought disgrace on you,
Totally disregarding
The ensuing mental anguish.
My fury kept steaming.
I refused a reunion.
Soon I filed a court case
For getting legal divorce.

Relatives and well-wishers
Intervened for compromise.
All I rejected outright.
I said I wouldn’t budge.

Fiercely I fought the case.
You didn’t counter at all!
You didn’t like to reunite
Through court. You took a pledge.

Court granted divorce.
I felt really relieved.
Still I fumed with rage.
So, your face I hated to see.
I took another wife.
You resigned to your fate.
They said you’re in misery.
That didn’t bother me.

Later on, several times
You had sent me word
Praying only to believe
That, faithless you were not.
Nothing else you wanted
Except exoneration.
Without it, you said,
In peace your soul wouldn’t rest.

I didn’t respond to you
For my anger persisted.
Your visit to the airport today
For a one-sided adieu,
Gave me a jolt and forced
Me to do rethinking.
You still seemed to believe
That I am valuable to you.


How to believe this!
Didn’t I disgrace you
By calling you publicly
Harlot and prostitute?
Averred in the open court
That you’re an adulterer?
Divorced and remarried.
Still I’ve a place in your heart!

This forced me to rethink
Even about the cousin’s caress.
Maybe it was platonic,
And the love truly innocent.
I became inclined to believe
It was nonsexual. If so,
My hasty and heinous acts
Deserve punishment.

The more and more I thought
The clearer became my feeling
That you must have been innocent,
You couldn’t have been unchaste.
My head started reeling,
Guilt filled my chest,
Questions hit my ears
‘Why did you act in haste? ’

Wasps buzzed in my head.
My vision increasingly blurred.
Body became weary,
With tongue and legs failing.

The ground beneath me
Has suddenly cracked.
A deep dark hole opened
Into which I felt falling.

A question echoed in the hole.
‘Why were you inconsiderate? ’
Hissed and coiled over me
Many a long serpent.
The serpents perhaps had
The divine sense of justice.
Instead of stinging in haste,
They wrung me hard to repent.

In agony I cried aloud:
‘Reena! Forgive me. I’m sorry!
Ask the snakes to release me.
And pull me out from this burrow’.
Waking up from the delirium,
I saw people splashing
Water on me, and my wife
Wailing with sorrow.

‘Where’s Reena’? I asked.
Then from the crowd you emerged
Wiping your eyes and saying
“I’m here, shall leave now.
“About me you mustn’t bother.
Your flight is on time.
Immigration is announced.
Proceed. Start life anew”.

And in a flash you left.
I called out “No Reena, don’t go.
I’m convinced. You’re innocent.
And I acted in haste.
“My mean mind couldn’t think
Of a platonic sublime love
Between a man and a woman.
Cultural gap, low taste.”

While bewildered people
Stood all around watching,
I strained and saw you Reena
Disappearing into horizon.
There my avowal resounded:
“Reena! you’re innocent!
You’re not faithless.
I beg for your pardon”.