Dighalipukhuri

One claw on a bar,
and the crow
lifts the other to his lips
and blows the day's first puff.
His view races the smoke through the fencing,
conductors spank their buses on-
“Dighalipukhuri. Dighalipukuri.”

Long pond.

He stares at a chirping he can never touch,
at entwined buds,
and pigeons floating together in air bubbles,
and lovebirds in love rows,
their heads under their wings.
His downy heart bleeds over the bliss beneath.

At home his vulture
awaits him,
the spear in her hair and
a carcass in her beak.

Here he makes his day long,
sometimes swoops down and scoops up a
beakful of love from the face of
Dighali.
Love like the blushes of hyacinths
skimmed behind the boats.
The trees smell of Duryodhana's incense
and Bhanumati's anklets still tinkle beneath the paddle-boats,
her turmeric and potfuls of milk
and wedding tears
and a few thousand years of love.

He will return to blow the night's last mists.


(Dighalipukhuri,literally 'long pond', situated in Guwahati is an ancient pond frequented by lovers. It is connected by an underground tunnel to the river Brahmaputra and was supposedly dug for Duryodhana and Bhagadatta's daughter Bhanumati's wedding bath.)