Ranjani Neriya (Two Poems)

RAFT OF BRAHMA

 

Koraga was untouchable

eloquent ebony skin, clothes stained

with the perils of his trade, he scythed with

fluid reach lithe lengths of osier, sweated pure

like any hard-working man.

 

Koraga’s woman crooned to her sleeping infant,

the sun stealing highlights from her coiled hair,

glint of bangles, her bone-worked finery

and she, in a wrap cool and soft as daybreak after rain

 

they bought the baskets the Koragas wove

they bought the tender cashew-nuts, mottled purple

the Koragas wrapped in moistened almond leaves

but only after the nuts and baskets were, untouchably

washed over at the distant well

 

when the Koragas crouched low, hands cupped

for a drink of water, the maid tucked her sari-skirt

tight between her thighs, poured water from a severe height

because nobody touched Koragas

 

noon-dazed, the basket-weavers stretched

in the jacaranda’s shade, reveling

in the rustle of leaf, benediction of sky

and Koraga sang – what he had learned

hunched far outside the temple doors,

mystic arcanum, holy words

 

Koraga sang, high and sweet

                                                 just as a whole pile of leaves might be pierced through and held

                                                 by a single stake, all speech is pierced through and   held together                                                   by the single syllable – om-   so sing om om om

 

the household listened, consternated,

every fibre of being alight, bruised

the venerable patriarch rose, marveled

palms together in reverence   

sing on, he said sing on

the raft of Brahma neither yours nor mine

is for every one to ride

 

and Koraga sang.         

 

 

 

THE 6.10 A.M. SKY                                                                        

 

it is a 6.10 a.m. sky

after a night of thunderstorm 

dusty-purple clouds look

like a runaway bride’s

torn, trailing hemlines

caught in the brambly 

trough of brindled trees,

 

the moon floats like

a loosened locket, and   

I watch the sky, caught

in the primordial snare

of an unseen axis balancing

creatures, continents, seas

 

in this briefest of light   

with a dipping pluvial breeze

the earth, the moon, the sky

seem to move, or is it all

in the tincture of my eye, pulsing;

 

a bolt of shantung unrolls 

topaz and cerise on ocean blue

into the awe of a rising day, but

fraught with a tugging loneliness,

as if not cared for enough to stay,

 

the moon and the 6.10 a.m. sky

disappear in linen-y folds of light,

now whipped and scored and creased

with the everyday strife of life.     .