All the time that you clung to that crag
on night’s cliff, waiting for dawn. Until at last
a strange day came when you finally rose
sensing a wild reverberation within
your heart. Strung up from the dizzying heights
you finally saw how life, looking like an ant line
far below had passed you by
and you hadn’t even realized.
The shrills of your commitments rose like roosters.
The syrup thick sense
of unctuous fulfillment was your temple,
glinting in the sun.
A dirge circled the pillars. You counted stars
during long unbending years, unaware that all
those pretty tinsel things that you so loved, had turned
to mold. Your dreams conserved in jars.
Your bones turned to salt. The weight of time piled high
like old magazines in the rag and bone man’s cart.
Then suddenly in the midst of it all,
in an endless series there came
the sting of incomprehensible tears. Even then
you did not comprehend.
So when at last you finally saw and heard,
and felt and tugged with your calloused hands
at the skirts of a new and bustling day
that hummed and sang; growing desperate to ride the land,
you clawed at everything in sight — the mist, the light,
the air. The treble of a bird singing somewhere.
But what you finally held
in your supplicant hands was the dust
of the crag that you had once so loyally embraced.
Nothing else remained.
Rumjhum Biswas says: “Now Chennai is just too hot to write a nice bio. Please walk your fingers to my blog. Whatever is there is there. Thanks.”
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11 Responses to “EPIPHANY • by Rumjhum Biswas”
Comments
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August 4th, 2009 at 4:29 am
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August 4th, 2009 at 8:07 am
It might help strengthen the forcefulness of this well-written poem if the reader was given more information about the “you” being addressed in the poem. I have no doubt it’s about a woman because of the words “those pretty tinsel things that you so loved”; of course that’s my own assumption and I may be wrong. I find that poems and stories written about a distant not ones own)experience are less convincing than those written from the self because they awaken in the reader suspicion of wrong assumptions. I don’t mean that one shouldn’t place one’s own experience of life in “third person” writing, or shouldn’t write of one’s own witnessing of others’ interior experience or outward action.
I’m just mentioning my own personal experience as a reader.
August 4th, 2009 at 8:10 am
I meant, of course, “(not one’s own)” with parenthesis.
August 4th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
I liked this very much. There is universal truth expressed that transcends my need to know the identity of “you”.
August 4th, 2009 at 8:33 pm
Very well done.
–dj
August 4th, 2009 at 11:45 pm
Thank you folks!
August 5th, 2009 at 5:15 am
Sharon – I am very sad to hear that as part of the “universal” you “clawed at everything in sight … but what you finally held in your supplicant hands was the dust of the crag … Nothing else remained.” I still have remaining some “pretty tinsel things” and if you make the arrangements, I can send you a share by email.
August 5th, 2009 at 8:26 am
Excellent. “old magazines in the rag and bone man’s cart.” Great sound.
August 6th, 2009 at 1:16 pm
This is a fantastic poem. Wow!
August 7th, 2009 at 1:07 am
I can relate to this poem, I love the line ‘The shrills of your commitments rose like roosters’ and the way this relates to dawn in the first stanza.
August 7th, 2009 at 7:30 am
Rumjhum – I looked at your Blog with photo, and at first quick glance I thought it was a skeleton of a snake clinging to a crag. I was surprised to learn and then recognize that the snake was a waterfall. Something unrefreshing about that waterfall. Of course, the poem doesn’t describe a snake, but an interesting picture to accompany the poem.