Our Invisible Thread

At an English class, with stress on grammar
Being taught how to write a perfect letter
Who’d want to write, my mind would shrug
When all I wanted could be said with a touch.

They said a paper and a quill was all I’d need 
Now the instructions seem an outdated feed
For when thoughts overflow, and eyes are blurred
Then lines of the glassed emotions scratch at words

For paper I’ll use the sheer weft and weave 
Of woven dreams now turned grey and bleak
There’s a line in there I’d like you to unravel
Pick the perfect seam, to read thoughts in a tangle

Like clues I’ve read, through the dreams you’ve sent
A dear departed’s welcome, as the soul’s river bent
Left me wondering all day, were they good to you,
This new land you inhabit, does it seem more true

When you lay wrapped up in a dress red and gold,
On a bed of wooden sticks, tell me –were you cold,
When I begged for a last time, let me see the face,
Touch once more, the hand that showered grace

Why could I see the soul hovering above?
Watching from afar the scene play of love
Did you see how my innards had been  blue?
When flames leapt at you, they charred me too

You’re thrust in a world which I can’t share
I wish you’d tell me that you’re all good there
When in the night I dream of your ashes in the urn
Then why does your fragrance too linger till morn

How many times, I beseeched you to just stay,
When you crossed veils of two worlds each day
For sensations of your touch wrapped us closer
For a moment I’d forget that you’d crossed over

Do you still remember the trips we wanted to take?
Or recall the special words that we two  did create,
Does being bereft of body, make you still envision
How icy cold it’s become at the very last station

Before email pervaded, how our lifeline was the  post,
You’d made me promise, so each Sunday I wrote
Never breaking this link, in my mind’s treasure trove
Saw your glowing face, as you lived each written word

Now the world has progressed, it’s on a wireless trend
And as my letter too has now almost reached its end
It’s your turn now, Mom; tell me how to send this to you?

And you whisper-through the invisible thread that joins us two.

                                          Ramakant Pande

Come Back Dear One

The overcast sky
So dark

Painted with thick rain clouds

Brought a reluctant dusk at noon

As winds, untamed

Burrowed holes through the leaves.

The Weeping Willow

Held the burnished Ebony

Swaying like the untamed wild

Waiting it out

Scattered, powerless, surviving

To slake the thirst.

Then the scanty drops

So thick

Wash over dried dreams 

Settle the dry summer dust

And wet the dry earth.

And then everywhere

The rain, the succour

The fragrance of revival

Its again dazzling green

Everything turned so washed

 So cleaned,

Washing the heavy sorrow laden me.

My dear one

How I wish you were here,

Soaking and drowning

We’d cleanse each other’s shards

Of the life we lost

 To our new creation of

The life that could never be.

         ...Ramakant Pande 

Someday

No struggling wistful hours

No intercepting threshold

With you the loadstar of a meandering

Life through starlit nights and seasons cold

I keep diving hard into sea of words

Yet fail to catch my breath

As they slip off over the net of shyness

As I so much want to profess

That the acorn tree where you first met me

Has been whispering ever since

You two are the lost part of each other

And someday you shall meet

The silver sheen of your bated breath

Will mist and melt the lost years

With each other we will touch like you did

In the living dream my heart steers

I’ve felt you in the colors of flowers

Seen you in the shape of clouds

My nights have been filled with dreams

Those memories of shared life arouse

Will you, I wonder, like in dreams

Wrap your arms, like a cozy sheet,

Around the one whose life is only you

On the blessed day we meet

Hesitate if you even for a moment in thoughts

Wondering if I can sense but not see

The person who is beneath the words

Those have flown over seas to me  

Will you then just hold out your hand?

I will in tight embrace see it melt

And look at you, assuage

The aggravated thirst we’ve felt

And hold your hands forever

And show you all the lonely walks

In bloom, in dog days, in fall across

As gushing streams over hope stalks

We’ll walk through ripening summer breeze

Into the mellow autumn’s rustling wind

And then in freshly fallen snow I’ll show

How I stood wherever I thought I glimpsed

A make believe footprint of you

With closed eyes and a fervent prayer

To tell you we’re one, not two

For it is a one soul we do share

There is just one footprint we would make

As I’ll hold you, treasure you, lift you above

 Two souls entwined, coalesced, merged

In a single seam of love.

          Ramakant Pande