Silk Scarf

A stray wind draft

Creeps underneath a creased

Green silk scarf

Ruffles, shocks and nimbly lifts it

Stealing it out from high mansion window.

With few playful mischief, abandons it

Entangling irretrievably on a thorny bush.

Seeing an old banyan tree

Stretching out its hairy arms

On highway road

She stops her speeding car

Under its shade.

Her wandering eyes sees the entangled scarf

Fluttering its shredded parts,

A frocked girl crying to escape

Being snatched away from widow mother

Consigned to a burning pyre.  

Her car doors tightly closed.

Engine and air conditioner on.

First she whispered, then softly sobbed.

Then, her cell phone hissed.

Shocked, she cried in anguish

as if suddenly stabbed

Being alone on a lonely road.

Was the banyan tree an octopus in deep sea?

A yellow leaf, yesterday green,

Falls on her wind screen

Getting stuck with wipers. They stop.

Mist settles in her eyes.

She vacantly looks beyond opaque screen.

Nothing moves. Nothing stirs.

Neither wipers, nor the leaf.

Being angry, the car has already stopped.

Her skirt’s hemline stuck in door.

Snatching it out, a wolf outside howls.

M. Hasan

Jaipur, August 9, 2009