Revisit: What's New, What's Old? (Nandini Sahu)

Nandini Sahu

The Sea of Pedigrees

True that. A bottomless embrace is the response 

even when the question is mysterious.

It transfers sustenance, security, keenness

guides and glides harmony apposite

from body to body, soul to soul.

Merging animated sans questions

charms the senses and touches your passion.

This, only this, is panacea of the cosmos, the creation. 

You whispered these honeyed words in my ears

when I bit your earlobes in a deep embrace.

I floated in the sea of frenzied dreams

and dream visions when you futilely attempted to explore

the nook and cranny--just all of it--

of my body beautiful.

It’s not easy my love

to touch the mysteries of the ocean.

And I smiled prevailing.

You seemed to be at some solution.

I looked deep in your eyes.

I could essentially see your desires of pedigrees

unfulfilled, unattended, unrequited.

Instantly I took charge of

your dreams, wishes and your subterranean passion.

I whispered, ‘take me as you like me,

it’s a complete surrender.’

You assumed I was right,

and you preferred the act of capitulation.

As I merged with you in you

and mocked to be asking for clemency

you smiled honored.

You said, ‘you ain’t seen nothing yet lady!’

That was my triumph! Making you the man,

the elemental man, was my resolution.

Now the memory of that moment is my safekeeping.

Ah, I have to rather safeguard it 

lest time’s talon corrupts it

in my myriad day long mundane action.

***

Stitching a Love

I am stitching a love, clothing a camaraderie

building a door through which you can enter

walking with the wind, facing 

history and taking in my stride the time’s talon.

Our days are nourished with the needle and the thread.

Our sewing home-base is our happy abode.

Our darned love tells our cherished tale.

Striking possessions come composed, one stitch at a spell.

What I style with my needles, I bounce with my heart. 

Any day is a great day consumed by our needlepoint.

Stitching a love – it’s not just a dexterity, it’s a healing.

Love, we have to collaborate in this webbing.

I am merely a strand of it, minus you I am nothing.

Whatever you do to my web, you essentially do a therapeutic thing.

Love, stitching is symbolic of hale and hearty human features,

stitching a love, you are darning our pasts and edifying future prospects.

***

Zero Point

I am at the zero point of divine energy

in the engagement of numbers in enjoining my universe.

The muse of my life is to accomplish freedom

 and mount to sundrenched worlds.

My existence is designed to realize inner transparency

of the metalanguage and institution, and

 zero is my witness, guardian, channel and champion.

Zero is an algebraic account of Nirguna Brahman

 the Brahman sans a form and devoid of intrinsic worth. 

Nirguna Brahman is a timeless ambiguity. 

The known-unknown. So is zero.

The bodily laws of the cosmos 

do not pertain to zero.

Zero rises as a link 

between the material and the metaphysical

 between cause and conviction.

The least and also the leading of all,

 it could neither be ruined nor twisted.

 I find it everywhere, 

veiled in every other figure.

Zero is symbol of the primitive.

There is no other in order 

that can embody me at this point

with such precision and such attached-detachment.

***

These days I do only what the heart says

These days I do only what the heart says.

These days I swim in the deep waters within,

this is the vanaprastha, emotive of the jungle inside;

no, it’s not leaving living-life, it’s delving 

deeper into the verve,

gloriously singing Gloria’s romantic number

“You are too good to be true…”

These days I do only what my heart says.

I warm up my hands with brewing coffee

and the soul with the kaleidoscopic changes around.

Brooding over my own fascination, happily

parting with the ever-nourished austere Puritan gravity,

these days I listen to my spirit.

Marvelling, perhaps there is someone at the other end ---

too willing to read, waiting eagerly

for my outpourings

to show on the

screen.

These days I just let time get inundated

in the racy and energetic madness of a 

‘fleet-footed-polar-deer’.

These mornings I have the leisure to

argue over the daily breaking news,

I have the occasion to wear a confident smile

and the wish to read messages

from friends and strangers as well.

These days I am reaching a stage 

when I can dictate terms and life doesn’t

have much of a choice.

Talking only blissful things

surrounded all the time by

frolicking flowers and cool

tender moonlight and foam on a sea of frenzy.

Being quietly impatient, engaged in an eternal monologue 

smiling at the innuendo and paradox of it

living in the moments impassioned, uninhibited,

a little flirtatious, a little mischievous perhaps,

marveling at the flash of

buzzing, inexplicable joy.

These evenings I have the time to water the plants

without worrying much about the 

daily homework of my child

or about the evening menu.

I have the rider of leaving the kitchen

to the cook, the worrying jiffy to time,

and the wind to blow whichever direction it pleases--

without my approval.

These evenings

I can reach home late, after a solitary long drive

following the tinkling wind chime

and the singing birds.

Afternoons I can spend with friends 

planning home for the homeless and 

pouring life-giving manna to the bowl of the lifeless.

My friends say, these days I do nothing much

nothing worthwhile

because

these days I do only what my heart says.

Smiling glorious like the Shakespearean heroine,

sparkling wit, sharp mind, quick repartee and awesome energy

and of course, governing the scene.

Living life

of sensuous abundance

under a star-spangled sky, on the apex of the blue-green waves

with their vast vastness all around,

breathing an elating air of sovereignty and bondage.

These days I understand that no one can

affront my spirit. Can the cuckoo slur the

tranquility of the night, or the firefly dishonor the sun?

Just because they sing or smolder!!

Disallowing myself the bliss of life

I have but piled up wishes galore

in the alcoves of my being. These days my body

understands its heritage and its equitable wishes.

I know, it will no more be swindled.

Because 

these days I do only what my heart says.

My body is the judgment of my spirit;

and it is me to bring forth engaging melody

from the bemused chaotic sounds to it.

These days I do only what my heart says.

Because the heart may weary, but it would never die.

These days, I do not try not to sound romantic

as earlier

because my efforts to do so

prove futile as at some unguarded moment, 

some word, expression shows

my true inner-self and I stand revealed.

Only the heart speaks. No carrot-and-stick story, this.

No rewards and punishment theory

to induce behavior.

I am like a bird on the wing, soaring into the clouds, 

seized with a sublime feeling of ecstasy, 

in the first flush of love

and looking down at the earth below

treating everything there as apparently insignificant

compared to what my heart bids 

me do. 

Silence does not hurt me anymore,

though I realize words have their own worth 

and necessity; sometimes they don't have 

substitutes and they have to be there

in some form---oral or written.

These days I speak and listen

the pursuit of silence is over.

In this game of hide-and-seek, I am the

prime mover, enjoying

my occasional wild wandering spirits 

(a poet's prerogative I suppose).

These days I do only what my heart says.

These days I live 

in uninhibited wishes and irresistible charm

and unabashed confiding

while enjoying the occasional mood swings.

Not distinguishing between 

their quality and quantity

drinking words, mouth agape,

these days I speak and listen to life.

These days I do only what my heart says.

***

---

Setu, December 2021