Refugee
It is midnight,
a fellow passenger
wakes me rudely.
I am already in Srinagar.
My suitcase is blue;
it looks purple.
Cars, tongas, people
who came to take
relatives home have left.
The courtyard
of the Tourist Reception
Center is bordered
by red, red rose bushes.
Wild flowers grow
along dank walls.
Screaming
fury of a night train
bearing a sweet name
brought me from
Delhi to Jammu.
A dingy, low roofed
J&K bus, a morgue
on wheels
dumped me here.
This is my home.
No one can stay
forever
in the valley
of mid-summer pleasure;
only I can.
A hindu woman
in pale blue silk,
found dead underneath
a Chinar tree,
four kilometers from
the Tourist Reception Center.
Strawberries
sown into silk
blink
at police lights,
clinging to hope.
A thin moon
wrings her hands,
leaning over
a weeping willow.
An earth gray
body bag
is flown quickly
to my pale faced
husband.
He alone can
do the last rites,
light a sacred
fire for me.
My soul
Ah! My soul
has freed itself.
Apples
almond blossoms
are
my bare shoulders.
Ripe cherries
and peach blossoms.
An inky river
is my hair,
my eyes a soft
black night.
My face parts
from the moon,
in blinding light
I fall, and rise.
[© Lalita Pandit, June 11, 1997].
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