SHANAYA

I’m on my way

Cliff bound, birds are flying in:

from spatial depths they fly

from where, possibly, my burdened vision started.

With spread and straightened pinions

they fly in one direction

as I walk the opposite way,

seeking to contain my poetry,

to versify my life in a quaver,

to loom my private history,

to implant my pain on the cliff,

perhaps

my offspring would read it,

departed friends who sheltered from the sun,

or maya women would decipher it,

or birds in flight

or

phantoms, within crevice taking refuge.

Cliff bound birds are flying in

as I plod my track

like Tiresias,

with thunder that will skelp my head,

with miracles ripping up indecently,

with old aromas

piercing me, like when in stupor,

I sweated nights away and spent my juices.

I still walk on my way.

Alone.

Like a strophe in search of its locus,

like a wedge needed to endure doubt,

like a stray star craving a pause,

as the wailing of birds is suspended

and night falls thickly on the cliffs.