A
LOVE LETTER
R. S. SUDARSHANAM
(Translated from the
Telugu by the author)
At creation’s first dawn
you and I, flower-petals
enfolded in soft slumber
slipped–
sailing apart to unknown shores
in a quest mutual.
Do you know me?
Experience’s imprint has
drawn
many time-wrinkled
fantasies,
life has deprived me of all
tenderness,
I am a love letter
scratched with sharp finger-nails
by a maiden desperately
love-lorn.
That was Shakuntala’s, no doubt,
her innocent bright heart
flashing thro’
the lightning etches on the
lotus leaf.
But this one is flaming
incarnadine with the blood of
endless separation.
You forget
our gandharva
marriage!
Well, mind is a
tear-drop on the lotus leaf,
when it is set free
from the prison
of remembering and not-remembering
shall the reunion be
in oneness!
in the night of deluge?