Sunday, December 11, 2011

Posh Puja

Darjeeling Train Tracks in the Himalayas


Come by train, my love,
Your heart straining
through the rusting heat of Delhi,
From the dust rise up
And come
To a lake in Kashmir,
Beneath the Himalayas~~
I’ll be waiting.

Follow my voice,
Whispering your name,
Soft as pashmina,
Through supple fields of semolina.
And we’ll embark,
Shikara together~~
Your feather cockaded,
My pale orchid veil,
In the green-grey rippling
Silk moiré waters,
We’ll shyly eye each other’s reflection.

There we’ll filigree sigh,
the air, crushed pearls between us;
The rosewater sky will deepen to dusk.
A single gold thread of light will bind us.
I’ll touch your feet with mine,
Your hands, I’ll clasp.
Under the red canopy,
Sheltered together,
The heavens will shower us with flowers
At last.





A Shikara docked on Dal Lake, Kashmir


5 comments:

  1. Posh Puja is the finale of a Kashmiri wedding ceremony in which the married couple are covered with a veil to represent them as Lord Shiva and Pavarti and then showered with flower petals by the guests as a blessing.

    Shikara is a wooden boat, similar to a gondola that is used on Dal Lake, in Kashmir which is a popular honeymoon spot on the edge of the Himalayas.

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  2. i think of place, jane, and i wonder on it. not necessarily physical place but place of self and i wonder if you reside beneath the rosewater sky, for this is how you write, always. it is lovely. always it seems as though i can smell perfume through your poems.

    what thinks you? where is your place of self? :)

    xo
    erin

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  3. A place of romantic imagining, sure.
    I showed part of this to a friend yesterday as I was trying to finesse the "crushed pearls" line. I was embarrassed a little to reveal this ultra-romantic writing, but she responded positively by saying that she liked it because of its gushing beauty.
    So, I'm creating/imagining a world where I would like to live. if only for a few moments.
    I was musing on the romance of trains and came to the Darjeeling Toy Train and then to Dal Lake and then started to read about Kashmiri weddings . . . .

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  4. wow..what a great set up for a romantic poem...also gorgeous pics..

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