The Golden Shower

A dream without seams
still follows me—
neither day
nor night.

On either side of the road
yellow deepens.
Golden shower everywhere,
pouring,
spilling, tipping over.
The laughter of waterfalls
waits in the wings.
An old gateway holds its breath.

The clock insists—
tick, tick; tick, tick….
And, time snaps to ice.
Crisis spreads,
blood flung in sudden stains..

Along the cornices

of leaves and boughs,

thorned orbs of gold.

In a brutal storm
homes buckle and fall.
Volcanoes wrench themselves apart,
The heat of blood
congeals,

At every step,
a sacrificial stone—
each one
an implacable slayer.

Staggering, reeling,
the volcanic earth
comes crashing.

Who shatters whom?
Within us all
the weight of stones.
Where vast greenness once stood,
an emptiness
no bridge can cross.

A dream without seams
follows me still.

_______________________________________
12 August 1994, Pune (Maharashtra)
First published: Weekly Janmabhumi, April 2007

Editor’s Note

The Golden Shower is a poem of pursuit and disillusionment—a tension between beauty and crisis. The image of sonaru in flower appears bright, abundant, almost celebratory. Set against it is an uneasy contrast: a world stalled in time, as though the earth itself is strained by impending ruin. Yet even as human time comes to a halt, the movement of nature remains unceasing.

The poem reflects a state of psychological and historical suspension. Time suddenly advances, then abruptly freezes; this interruption marks a moment of crisis. Waterfalls laugh, but in concealment; gateways stand not to welcome, but to wait. Violence is shown as both external and internal. Where there was once greenness, there is now an impassable emptiness—the loss of continuity, of the ability to cross, to move forward, to imagine passage. And yet, sonaru is still in bloom, the dream still in pursuit. This circular motion refuses closure.

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