Poem | Sharanya Manivannan | Something Was Promised Me

Roses- Van Gogh - Wikimedia Commons 

Something was promised me a long time ago,

when the world was still conspired in halves, and

each was a bowl, capable of holding, and keeping.

We were spun from each other like winged seeds

in elemental time, brought to earth by the weight of

wanting. We radiated across great distances, light

and lion-valiant. There was always rain, or the memory

of it. I filled myself to the brim, and kept searching.

My palms were held ever open. I sullied my fate lines with

the small spines of feral roses in the overgrown briars,

while at my back the sun reminded me how the world that

had come to pass into being was patterned and circinate.

I would call your name if I knew it. But that too was

taken in the wind, or left at the red altars at each border

where I settled to wait for something else to say.

Perhaps I will only know you by the soles of your feet,

filthy with long travel and untranslated experience. But you

who also spun so far away, will you appear, will you stay?