4 minute read
Randhir Khare - LITANY OF RAIN
Randhir Khare is a distinguished writer, artist, teacher and theatre personality. He is the recipient of numerous national and international awards for his unique contribution to culture and education. His 36 volumes of poetry, fiction, essays, translation from tribal dialects and other writings as well as his seven solo exhibitions all explore themes of identity, belonging and the struggle to stay human in a violent and fragmented world. He has more recently spearheaded an initiative to enrich formal education through the experience of the arts. Randhir is a founding contributor to Live Encounters Magazine.https://randhirkhare.in/
I
Awake Crickets creak in sparks Appear disappear appear, Fuse, expand, Light rings hover, Dog-barks explode, Heartbeats throb a warm glow, Rain raises her skirts Settles her thighs on my city, Air musky with longing.
I smell the dead in the streets Floating, whispering, Shouting, singing, I know it’s time to go, But I don’t know –Is it my time to go? Will I see a sign? A signal? Will an angel hold my hand And lead me on? Or will I disappear…just leave Without a trace And reappear in the streets Joining the procession.
II
Dear hope I want a cup of tea Just you and me;
Stuck between time’s teeth My feet cold and wet The stench of dead breath Fills my lungs, I hear no answers to my questioning, Pry me out and flick me in the air I don’t care Where I fall So long as you are there, I want a cup of tea Just you and me;
III
It rains on this shell, my home, It rains on this city Where the walking-sleeping-living-dying Wait for a miracle at the far end of a queue For a closed door to open with a burst of light; Where the dark has entered pores And smothers dreams, Where the flesh of night is lightning gashed, Where birdsongs will serenade the dead When there is dawn, Where hope is a rain-clean pebble in a park Sunk in the litter of abandoned toys, Where animals stagger in the streets Growling and crying; It rains on this shell, my home, It rains on this city.
IV
You are my reflection in the mirror, I am your reflection in the mirror, We are lost spirits frozen in the moment Waiting for tomorrow, Time ticking, You are not you and I am not me, We are not we, Time ticking, We will never be we, Soon we will turn they, Soon we will dissolve Into grey rain over the city, Into secrets that no one will ever understand, Into the breath of evening smelling of stale love, Smelling of you and me, Smelling of me…
V
Let me out, set me free From me, from you, Let me out, set me free from fear, From waiting, from hoping, From dreaming, from loving, From expecting, From time; Hold me in one palm Let the wind blow me away, For I am dust; This is not the end, This is not the beginning, This is this, The wind’s way, No home; In the moonlight even the dead look beautiful But there is no moonlight There is no sunlight, There is rainlight In streaks, in slithers, in sheets, in wet whirls, In pools, in puddles, in droplets seeping in through pores, Down veins and arteries – heartwards, Flooding my heart;
V
I can feel the tides rising and falling, The deep rumbling and exploding, Foam-crested waves breaking and sliding, And Noah in his craft of survivors Huddled and praying –For the waters to still and settle, Christ dancing on the waves like a dervish, Swirling and singing, Each note knocking on the beams of the ark, “Come on out, come on out, Join the dervish dance, Join Shiva’s tandav, catch the rhythm of heartbeats, Dance the eternal now…”
Beyond the horizon of the flood, A crucifix waits for the end of the dance.
VI
Rain falls on my city Feathers of a great grey bird on its way to nothingness, Crying eerily, flapping, gliding, Migrating from nowhere to nowhere, Feathers raining on the streets, On the walking dead, on homes crouched into themselves, On sabbaths of silence, on the chaos of loneliness, On the loving of lovers, On hands nailed to nothingness, On the dull clunk of graveyard spades, On spires, on the homes of the holy, On the homes of the hated, on bankers and bullies And the cacophony of stock markets, On the spinning bloodied globe, On sirens and messiahs, on the parade of priests And the chastisement of the innocent, On the great sea of battle washing from shore to shore, From continent to continent, From island to island, From love to hate, From you to me and me to you And we are one.
