OUR UNION
An evening came floating by
Into my life
Not to lull me to sleep
Instead to add
Usher looming storm into my sunlit life
So far I had slept through evening into the night
Dreaming my way to joy into morning light
Those butterfly days of a playful child were days into oblivion
Days lost in time
That night I had tried to cross the night sea
Merely by standing and sitting and watching
Staring at wave after wave splash to break upon me
That was the night
The first night of union
Our union
Man and woman
He and me
Draped in Brocade Banarasi sari
My mother had woven for me for the auspicious night of union
Yarn of gold woven into pink sky
Studded in twinkling diamonds
Plucked from her night sky
She foresaw her daughter shine like the fairy
Land upon earth from heavenly sky
I was decked up in gold ornaments of glory
In ornamental grandeur from head to toe
In antique gold jewellery
My Grandmother’s mothers jewellery
My Grandmother had gifted my mother
On my mother’s first night of union in her days of royalty
A precious heritage
The family heirloom
That night I tried to reach up to the stars
Of the pink night sky woven in gold upon my pink sky
In my heart
In me glittering and shimmering into the unknown
My floating cloudy heart
My sea of heart
My unruly limitless heart
He came in as I sat in waiting
Upon a scented floral bed
Laced bed spread of full bloom rajnigandha
He sat beside me
My hand into his hand he was holding
He had asked,” Are you not happy married to me?”
That was all
That was all happening
Before I could answer him we parted for the night
The night of union
The night woven by generations into a sky full of dreams
I sat through the night
To hear the stray bark
Holding tightly close to the lapping of night dark
Grasping for warmth
The moon churning up the sea
Salt after salt
Wave after wave
On my face downpour my cheeks
The dull stars forgot to shine
As I sat through the night cold and alone
Waiting for the sun
A heart break in the heart of life
Heart of me
Poetry written by: Dewali Deb