Dr. Haraprasad Paricha Patnaik
I have called you
a sea of silent desires,
a desert of rain dreams,
a forest of ancient sorrows,
a rainbow of yester years.
How often do I desire to call you
a barren mound of moonshine,
a river in spate in a moonless night
a tree that has never borne
a bud for a hundred years,
a destiny that plays tricks with time and me.
Now, you are an incomprehensible now
ripped by echoes of unknown time,
a starry sky of lights,
a wind that heaves in distant vales,
a romance that has changed its definition.
Some times I wonder
if I had made ways to you,
to your expanse of inchoate wonder,
and like the paws of a cat scratched
your dumb nipples to my innocence.
Sometimes I wonder
if we had seen the old sun rising
and had gathered the waves on a shore.
Sometimes now, at times now
I only wonder at our ways.