Bibliophilia
I notice her gaze from a distance,
the eyes blazing with a message, smoky
at this hour. She knows
in the end, only the char remains, yet
she carries the ember around,
hoping someday it would leap
into the flesh, carrying it long.
The eyes speaking, like a river
gathers pebbles, suspends silt
where nothing seems to drown,
the sea floats above it, like an oil slick
I drift
to her eyes ajar, as if the wings of a butterfly
flutter, a piece of star
in multiple colors.
Can a book’s loneliness be greater
than its author’s, I wonder,
as I stare at the words, I see
my forlorn vocabulary and her
serenading each other,
like two dancing black holes,
the voids merge,
and emerge.
Performing the last rites of your previous self
The first things are objects – they must be left behind
since memories cling to them which invoke the ghosts,
if we do not pass on to them.
Gather the objects precious to the previous self
Donate them in charity or dispose them off by burning.
Next, we must laugh at what is pass
we must consider the passing self as trivial – worthy of jokes.
We must not allow tears to consecrate it
else it will spring to life – water makes life happen.
By laughing we offer the deceased
the wind of the belly – sterile and anoxic.
In the succeeding stage, the acquaintances will sprinkle earth
or add fire to the passing being
Be patient here, for these will be in words
Be like a corpse, just as it is
passive to its last rites.
Everyone would retreat
after ensuring the departed has been torn into its elements.
You wait till they have walked back forty steps.
You pray in solitude for the last time, offer the passing one
the blood that is blue on its surface, but from inside like any other.
Pay your gratitude to the perished,
for in its passing, you are taking a new life.
As a final step, forgive yourself
and keep no memory – zilch, nothing,
even of forgiving yourself.
(Tabish Nawaz teaches Environmental Science and Engineering at IIT Bombay. He has published a short-story collection Opening Clouds, Fermented Rain (Hawakal, 2020). His short stories, poems and essays have been published in nether Quarterly, Madras Courier, The Bombay Review, Woolgathering Review, The Punch Magazine among other venues.)
