To The Hands Withdrawn – Saswata Ghosh

The hand that I once, had clasped to rise,
Slipping when it soft, from the palm of my life

Between those fingers, though clenched they were tight,
Ploughed with her nails – a liar’s condemned sight
On my lines of fate, to ever remind of my lies…
The lies born of love, but Ah, never to ‘connive’!

When first I sank, in those consoling eyes,

They were wet with emotions, but now barren and have dried
Can a love that’s wounded, by un-intended fault,
Be infected with hate, and more horrid assault?
Is faith mere blossom, which in winter dies?
In pity more than love, was your friendship tied?

Were they foul, my fervent tears, to wipe them that you came?
Did my groans your slumber prick, and you frantic made them end?
Or since thou are – ‘a generous heart’, some casual alms did give
So that he, who begged for love, – few happy days could live.
But foolish he, in joy proclaimed – ‘True friendship smile is same’
And learns today: he lives ‘in debt’, that lifelong he can’t fend!

As nightingale why, were you moved to sing, to me those plaintive songs?
Which brought me back, from woods that had promised to be my own?
… The woods with trees, flowering in grief, on the banks of squalling streams;
No thorns there lay, that injure could even, the periphery of my dreams,
Unlike the words, that plucked my flesh, by flaying about my wrongs –
“ … Misjudgment mine, so grave my friend, which friendship can’t condone ?”

Melancholic souls, though weak and sick, never are ‘helpless’ till,
Once hugged with love, now leaving forlorn, those hands are but withdrawn.
Don’t lift with care, fragile hearts like mine, to eyelashes fringed so high;
When a blink brings them, to your feet to be, shattered before a sigh!
Though thirsty they, in their goblets small, don’t pour opiate goodwill –
That despair they, in darkness see, disillusionment in the dawn …