TO A SWALLOW
R. Rabindranath Menon
Into the life-long summer of my love,
you flew in, a conscious act,
bringing rain to quench the young thirst.
We really felt the thrill of being
together, and your heavenly wing
rested on a shady tree to sing.
You might now in a self-created night
review those days as steeped in blight.
Soon your weird fancies would invent
after a cloudburst, a season of discontent,
calling it winter with your morbid scent.
And gradually fly your fancied sorties
to fake summers elsewhere and praise
vice as virtue in a mental strip-tease.
Chewing the cud, you could then discover
different nuances. With the small change
you thought you could build an Elysium
on the shifting sands by beating the drum
of your emotions whipped up to a rage.
and fancying you were caught in a cage.
Imagined rage didn’t have the courage
to break free; freedom was a mirage
in the desert of your weird thought
straining for a spree, but caught
in its own insecurity’s boiling pot.
To fall in love with change, for the sake
of change, is to rearrange your stake
for burning oneself in the fancied fire
of a restless nympho’s wander-mire.
One swallow can make a summer
in that magic land of love that can simmer
to make two hearts together murmur.
To get dissolved in each other,
and slowly and surely smother
selves in a union, strong and mature,
is a gift of true love. But you would rather
forage forever for fancied, gossamer
amour in freedom that had a license
to deviate and dissipate in the tense
alleys of sentimental nonsense.
O, swallow! Your love was always hollow.