Mahanadi
There is very little we can bring in the conversation.
The river that devours us, that makes you look back
seethes across the shoreline,
carries sediments of footprints touching holy feet,
Now the sun floating in the vacuum
the sky turns from amethyst to pale auburn,
hesitant, fleeting, even illusory,
River beds are strewn with debris and grief plants,
the painted boats acquire a thin yet sharp and curved line,
steady up and down in low currents and
finally melt in downstream,
Each one of us stands before the flickering flame
from these shades of grey and grey, in the end
the moving lamps light the dark.
Unknown birds begin to climb as if hand over hand
over the top of the clouds,
which is what there is and also is
the blackness of space.
The time lives through, all of us there,
none of us there.
There is a Mahanadi inside all of us.