My Dream
I shall never see his face.
Only hear a voice like
fine music, chanting of mantras
in ancient forest retreats.
My father's old country,
lost to me forever, and ever,
amid the mid west bounty
of summer, becomes my dream.
I hear a footstep near
the red rosebush; the shadows
it casts on moonlit nights
are a bride's downcast eyes.
The pale white robed
Pundarika, the ascetic hero
of an old, old story is
so chaste, pure like a waterfall
that roars sonorous amid
wooded hills, majestic boulders
of Himalaya. Magical pathways
bring me to it: unawares.
Sheltered by leaves
of an ashoka tree, my dream
wakes and sleeps
with the sun and the moon.
Falls on its face
like a toddler of legend,
wearing gold anklets.
Lotus petals are his
shapely lips, morning breezes
stir them slightly, holding
back a wave, a storm, a torrent.
What might be said
gets tangled
in half finished thoughts.
My deep sleep enchants
light step of the bluejay,
red throated squeak
of a cardinal in midsummer.
Egrets step on white sand,
five fathoms of the Atlantic.
Do they still turn bones
into coral, eyes into pearls?
II
Does my father's country
have a dream, a plan,
a safety net, a strategy
to retrieve the banished native.
He lives in a refugee camp in Udhampur,
becomes a mid summer guest
where he should be a host.
After three days, he boards
a dark blue van; it will take him
back to the camp.
His face is blackened
by a sorrow that has no name.
No legitimacy; it is so like him.
Can someone tell this man:
"stay, don't go." Pull out your keys
open jammed locks of your house
in Vanpooh, the river town in the south.
See if the squirrel
your twelve year old used to feed
has her nest where it used to be.
If the burnt down temple near your
house can be mended enough
to let a deity return in gentle peace?
My dream is maya, and this man's
refugee camp, his no-home,
his comings and goings are too.
Perhaps a sorrow will pass.
[© Lalita Pandit, July 4, 1998].
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