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An Odyssey

Gradually, I lose myself
within you—
like a kite untethered,
distance loosening in the sky,
drawn into the hawk’s
wind-lashed wings.

In an old barouche,

museum-locked kings and emperors,
fledgling bamboo cradles
in the grove
Clouds churn the sky—
the agitation
of an unnatural breath.

In fire, a multihued robe

twitches and writhes;

around the dancing witch’s neck,

the faceless citizenry.

Through the wind drift
weather-worn songs;
turning to smoke,
the days of youth
fly off, unclaimed.

Gradually, I lose myself
within you.

______________
1997, Nagaland

Editor's Note

An Odyssey reflects a process of decay—the erosion of the self, of time, and of political and emotional certainties. To be “lost within you” is not merely a romantic dissolution; it is a surrender before a larger, nameless force, signalling the loss of agency and authority.

The poem’s images confront one another across multiple registers—kings and emperors confined to museums; fire and witches; vultures and headless (unconscious) citizens; visions of youth that drift away as smoke, unfulfilled. These juxtapositions evoke a world where the stained chapters of human history are replayed, and where the cost of exploitation and repression by power-hungry rulers is borne by ordinary people. The phrase “the boundless distance of the sky” gestures towards a direction of freedom, yet liberation remains unattainable and impossible—predatory leaders, like hunting birds, keep constant watch over the populace.

An Odyssey stands as a lament. The voice is stifled, memory eroded, and resistance left unspoken.