by Anupam Patra
She was once the length of my hand,
now she has locks twirling behind her ears
her innocence radiates within a pure dawn
like a confident prediction of beauty.
A part of me though is reluctant to be happy
for hesitantly my heart discovers
memories of careless lust,
followed by indifference unjust −
the soot of regret clouds a beautiful moment
Is this happening the way
someone had said years ago
as she’d showered blame
within the monsoon of her tears?
Is this her nervous curse?
The sound of her fingertips
gliding on her knuckles
is crushing to this day
Is my anxiety an evidence?
That a day like thiswould arrive
to interpret her grief;
she’d shifted her gaze afterwards
to my empty eyes,
hoping I might have realised
but it is today that I do,
when virgin light is pampering my girl’s bloom
when its peachy beams are glossing her room.
she turns towards me, shifting in her dreams
the petals of her lips parted gently,
her closed eyes swimming among stars
I imagine the elegy of my devastation
were someone to cause her the same sensation
of which I am guilty.
When I clamour for amend I understand
I have since long lost reparation’s chance.
She took it away when by her last poem’s ink
she gave in – ended twenty-six years in a blink,
diving into the quicksand of countless pills
My probe into the principles of vindication
leaves me with questions:
How must a malefactor atone?
How must he answer for his past of wrongs −
so that his lapses do not become a prison
where daughters never belong?
How must he shelter an innocent from what is her own −
so that her bond with a sinner
does not usher an ‘inescapable forever’?
