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Not Enough

Remi Raji

“oh reaper of my evening song,
how solitary dreams believe you to be mine!
You are mine, mine, I go shouting it to the afternoon’s
wind, and the wind hauls on my widowed voice”

From Pablo Neruda’s “In My Sky at Twilight”
itself a paraphrase of
the 30th poem in Rabindranath Tagore’s The Gardener.

I
in spite of poetry, a song is not enough for you

i wanted a song to trap the tenderness of that night
to remind you of the candle of dreams

i wanted a canvas of words, to paint
the first faint spell of your lion presence

when i recall the loud whispers, the quiet laughters ...
then, and now the dance of nerves, oh the magnetic glow

the soft understanding of unspoken words …
how i lack the brush to describe the substance of your skin & soul.

II
may i launch a planet of melodies, compose myths
touch the skylight, imagine you dance on my palm
will you remember the pollen promises of light
in spite of the void and the distance sure to come?

III
And like you, i shall be tranquil
for in this shy silence, i touch the currents of your breath
root, tributary, bank and a delta of dreams
you are river, i am river
and nerves like fire
but how eternal shall we burn
each to each …
knowing, burning heaving souls in search of names?

And in spite of metaphors, in spite of this poetry and that fire
a song can’t be enough for you … for you are the song.




LitNet: 26 July 2006

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