Thursday, December 6, 2012

One Walked Among the Muses

The echo of her feet sound the beats
Of monsoon's invitation.
Thirst. The Earth's
Impatience groans in exhilarated agony, and
Untarnished soil moans to be trodden.
Like the slow creeping moonlight
Embalming the horizon,
Ethereal, the grace of her motion
Intoxicates, and the ground in her path drifts,
Into a timeless reverie.

The white silk gently hugs her form,
And a stream of honey drapes her shoulder.
She turns her head, and a single rose,
On the back of her neck, adorned
In its lofty seat,
Tells an unearthly tale to those who dare listen.

The dying winter's last breath-
That rejuvenating south wind-
Desperate for another touch,
Blows one last time,
And permeating the air with a fragrance of poesy,
Gently caresses a strand from over her eyes.
The heavens rumble deep,
As what unfathomable thought crosses her mind,
With a careless smile that litters a thousand poets.

Unaware she walks, envy of the muses.
And as the crashing waves pause to admire,
Centuries die beneath her footsteps.

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

This is utterly brilliant. There was something 'climactic' about the whole poem and the final lines were just something else :)

" a careless smile that litters a thousand poets" is a mischievous - and adorable - expression, one which anyone who has an interest in writing might wish for their name to be on it. [I at least wish so :D]

The first stanza reminded me of M. Arnold's Dover Beach for some reason. It is free but there is an internal rhythm and coalescence about it - unconscious, perhaps, and for that reason even more beauteous - that I love.

"permeating the air with a fragrance of poesy" is another wonderful string.

*Applause*. Write more, dude!

Unknown said...

It was a rather warm early-summer-late-winter evening in Auckland, and having found myself in a rather lonely spot of time with nothing else to do, or rather with not being able to do anything else, I (the emotional fool that I am) decided to re-read S.A.'s 64 emails from that time between the two semesters when I was writing her CLA paper. We haven't met or talked since those two intoxicatingly painful days in the lab. I hardly ever see her anymore, but when our paths do cross once in a few months I always know from the smile in her eyes that she means it when she says she has been busy and "it's nice to see you". Following Wilde's advice- " Don't spoil every romance by trying to make it last forever"- I have trained myself to not long for lastingness. And taking cue from another woman I deeply adore, Sylvia Plath, who says, "I pine for the things that will destroy me", I have learned to accept that some people are just meant to long without taking any steps towards it. So, there I was, on a nice evening, cloudy and windy, reading old emails, reliving old conversations, when it dawned on me that she is so special. Now, I don't know if it's because I am sapiosexual and she is dreamily intelligent, or because she is stipped in poesy- teaches piano, learns to tango, works two shifts and majors in Semantics- and I have some sub-conscious need to be around people who are far above my station, but I do go to sleep everytime thinking of her, and those thoughts are never sexual! They are more like conversations with someone who is not present. And as I was thinking about it, I was reminded of the closing lines of Vikram Seth's An Equal Music- “Music, such music, is a sufficient gift. Why ask for happiness; why hope not to grieve? It is enough, it is to be blessed enough, to live from day to day and to hear such music-not too much, or the soul could not sustain it-from time to time.” And so I thought, may be I should try and let some of that music out. It is far to great a melody for me to recreate it, of course. But I merely tried to be a cheap record-player, re-playing a live recording. I can't usually write stuff like that because I do not write them. She wrote them, without knowing so, in my mind- while we were talking ( I was sleeping, of course.) I merely typed them out.

Anonymous said...

Woah! WOAH!

Not sure which one is more stunning now - the poem is certainly the more beautiful - the comment, or the poem! (?)

One thing is for sure: you and I are both silly men at least in a particular respect. :D Probably why we hang out together so much.

Unknown said...

Prince George: I am in agony, Blackadder!

Blackadder: Well sire, that's love for you.

Prince George: But I did the right thing, didn't I Blackadder? In letting her go?

Blackadder: Of course Sire! Now there's something I never thought I will say.

Prince George: Still, I suppose our paths may cross again someday. Lovely Genelia! Hope springs eternal, doesn't it Blackadder?

Blackadder: So it does, Sire. What a bitch!


















Steve Finnell said...

you are invited to follow my blog

Unknown said...

I am sorry, Steve. I am sure you are a good writer. But I am a scientist, a skeptical thinker, a logical reasoning sentient being and hence an atheist. I do not believe in fairy tales about creating light, an essentially quantum substance. I do not believe in following dictates of an invisible father who threatens to burn me in hell if I do not worship him. I believe in the Big Bang. I believe in evolution. I believe in condoms. I believe Jesus was a product of intercourse and orgasm. I believe an expanding universe with a finite size, that can be explained end-to-end through the laws of physics. I do not take unreasonable, unscientific, untestable commandments. There is nothing in your blog I will ever read. The lord is not my shepherd. I am not a sheep.