CYCLONE
When earth has in its bones
an ague, it lets out a
cyclone,
with sky as witness. Trees
uprooted like men,
decrease
their burdens, forming
polygons
for patterns. Birds
flying,
are flown like rags.
Winds bring
the dead resurrected from
the tombs
to admit more, later
build honey-combs,
exchanging men for bees,
and blood
with honey. A broken
branch lies dead
like a soldier, duty-bound
perhaps,
on a prostrate child.
The picture overlaps
and slips in memory,
stacking many a myth,
misery double-marches to stay
with.
ruinous cyclone is a
syndrome
of a depression which
comes home
for a show-down. The
weary day
wears a nightgown, prefers
to stay
under cover of pretended
sleep.
Nothing the weather fore-cast
can spell, will undo
the will to last.
the sky in the
witness-box,
seeing the present and the
past,
groans, in a lightning,
the hidden meaning
of the ague that may
repeat its fling.
–R. RABINDRANATH
MENON
.