Once With A Mid-Day Woman

Dr Sudhansu Dash

A number of shadows

Moving with their deformities

Turning to her

And sinking into the earth

Leaving a barren and blasted spot

Send out into the world

To make out its hidden importance.

The blood may fairly be said

To have left a deep strain upon her

As old as the dry bones

The face she hardly knew to shame upon herself

The gray shadow murmurs to itself

With its sensuous sympathy.

She must be content to call it love

In a wild forest bordered settlement

Until a small portion of her body is close to the mortal frame

Mingling the earthly substance to the soil.

It hunts her with a sort of home feeling with the past

Not positively disgraceful

She calls the little child

After a moment’s silence.

Do you know my child

What this letter meant

That your mother is doomed to wear?

The singular expression she marks

In the black eyes of the innocent face.