Friday, November 9, 2012

The Swan Song of Jatayu



Waiting on the cold stone

With bleeding wings and pride

Wounded by the arrogance of a king

Who got his wish in his flying machine.

Loyal was I always to the one who

Loved everyone without discrimination

Lying on a pool blood I think of nothing but

Leaving the one who covered her face in shame.

Oh..dear Lord when are you coming

Searching for the lost cries in the wilderness

Without knowing that I who has fought to stop

The one who has been carried off to shores yonder.


Memories flood in me as the life oozes its way out

Of the days of my own love; like two careless

Winged dreams against a sky blue and white

Abandoning the branches holding us down.

One day she too was taken away by the one

Who came with a bow and arrows that did not kill

But wounded the heart with jealous and greed

And left me alone in a sky that turned a black hole.

We had dreamt the dreams of forests

We had sung the songs of winds

We had danced the dance of leaves

And we had flown like the waves of a spring.

Spring bestowed us with flowers to deck up

Our mighty feathers, brown and grey

Beaks shone with the emeralds that we picked

From the depths of oceans and the heights of mountains.

At the capes of seas we drew our pictures

With enormous shadows casted by a glittering sun

And at the peaks we sprayed golden spangles

With the kisses we shared why soaring in spirals.

Night came like an angle disguised in darkness

Only to be deceived by the shine of moonlight

And revealed the whiteness of its soul to us

And we drank the nectar at tree tops.

The mighty eagles, they called us,

Jata and Jatayu, they hailed us

Wonderful pair, thought even gods

But fate was conniving traps to get us.

Oh, Jata, like Parvati to Shiva and Lakshmi to Vishnu

Where have you gone, I ask in pain

The cold pebbles roll down as my huge tears

Wet their ways and leave a trail.

Looking at blood drops and tears obvious

You, oh Lord come all the way following

An echo that sounded like the last scream

Of your beloved who never left you even at perils.

And you see me, hold me like a petal about to depart

From the stem and pores which have been its friends

Till then the mighty storm of destruction struck

In the form of a sword that excelled the lightning.

Before I bid good bye to the benevolent eyes of the Lord

And to the vast sky that once was our abode

I tell him the stories of my struggles against the one

Who had even challenged Shiva once.

On Lord, you listen to the story like a warrior in fire

And I wish I had that ire in my air so that I could have

Imperilled the vile one who had taken away my Jata

To the world of untold myths and pains.

But I am sure this is a moment of deliverance from

All kinds of deprivation and pain, only to join the soul

That has been hovering there in the form of a bird

Which I have been seeing all these while.

With the last breath at your lap and with your

Warrior’s fingers on my eyes, I could tell you this

Never ever kill that demon who had taken your woman

For he was not taking her to the unknown

But to the known world of love and desires.

You may accuse him of greed, avarice and lechery.

But know, my Lord, the lord of all worlds

He too was a man who had sired the one

Whom you deem the mother of your would be sons.

I intervened, only to get hurt, by the one who love

And for the one who love more and in the eventual war

All the loved ones would realize what love would beget.

And it is time for me to depart oh my lord.

Saying this Jatayu breaths his last and he lies on the stone

Like a palm tree fell by a cruel archer

Wings spread and dreams dried, he has gone

And I see who shadows merging into one at the horizon. 

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