Reena Prasad
It is strange how free one is
when totally bound
Feet and fingers working on
Unthinking
unfeeling
unconnected beings
oblivious to what the rest is doing
Time defeated, curls into a corner
no longer willing to wait the night out without sleep
Morning comes-a mechanical being with a huge flashlight
Muttering about loose ends and trailing ribbons,
Its windmill-hands, trying to wrest back undiminished, unfinished urges into the caves they inhabit
-those overpowering night flowers that burst into hurried bloom from all over freshly washed bodies behind briefly closed doors
Fingers work away
alternately pulling out weeds from the overgrown garden in the blinding sunlight between monsoon showers
and clutching at tufts of thick hair with its defiant roots
drowning either way
In grass or in desire
Pointless to talk about freedom
in a poem that stalks its words hungrily
craving endlessly an elusive ecstasy
– a silver snake in the golden corn
With each rambling verse, the snake glides into fields yet to be ploughed
