THE TABLE IN A RESTAURANT - Bhaskar Roy Barman
Bhaskar Roy Barman
The moment I close my eyes
in meditation on the unfathomable
I visualize golden fleeces of cloud
perambulating the skies
and old faces peering down through the fleeces,
their faces writhed into a semblance of smile.
With them I used to sit at a table in a restaurant
by the window overlooking a garden.
The smells of the garden-flowers
Would spatter against the window-pane.
They left me closeted with the ever-changing world.
I feel , whenever I sit at the table, their hanging around the table.
I glory in living in the ever-fresh changeability
of the ever-changing world.
They have stuck at the last words
they had uttered at the table
and at the last glance they had thrown
through the window around the garden.
I can have trees felled. if I like to I often do,
for it fetches me a good amount of money I can,
if asked to, stand on a dais to deliver a mellifluous speech
on the necessity of afforestation.
I can attire myself in ultra-modern habiliments
when I go out with my wife to have people think
we are but a happy couple,
and to get ourselves photographed to remind ourselves
we married each other one day.
But they remain clothed in the garments
they had worn at the table.
In meditation I visualize them mocking me,
for I have shut my eyes to the truth of life..
