Palash and the Padmini
The valley stands bare-shouldered
A hint of mist softens the gnarled carcass
of the Fiat Padmini BRY 1709
and the claiming fire.
The flames leap to the sky
like the blossoms of that tree,
Buteamonosperma
as Palash would have called it,
looking out of the window
bare-shouldered with sinews
like the ash-grey tree
His spoken words in a dead-language
Inflammable punctuated silences
coveted moments so very abundant
in the bliss of our union.
Even without words
Palash lights up the dark.
Flame of the forest
Upright and unyielding, stark.
The ambers now glow
louder than the undone vermilion
of a smudged sunset.
A pair of headlights sweeps the darkness away
The ambulance arrives many hours late
Men in white find a tapering pulse in him
While I hold on to a tiny beating heart, growing inside me.
A surge of pain
now tugs at my womb
The waters break
to douse the fire
and wipe away the salt
from my kohl-tattooed cheeks.
Help now is at arms' length
in the safety of scalpels
but the bite of the metal
can't bury the voices.
Someone whispers,
a power claimed him
Another calls it ... sabotage
A cynic calls it suicide.
Of course, most speak of destiny.
I wait for those fingerprints
On the bloodied sickle that was found
Right next to the Fiat Padmini.
