On His Wife’s Photograph

Subhransu Maitra

Are you just a picture now? 

Or an intense complex image, 

still second person present indefinite? 

If I return and adhere to 

what the scriptures declare 

and sages-past and present- aver, 

you acquired mystery and renewal 

when you passed.  

As you lay dying or dead, 

You released emitted 

-clear and free of human orbits- 

an ineffable luminous subtle 

nebulous soul halo 

visible only to adepts and sages 

when flesh, traits, blood and traces 

fell apart. The nebula 

collected condensed into a lambent shape. 

It was you, your essence and spirit 

which slowly drifted away. 

Perhaps this breathless eternal soul essence 

is drifting now in its own orbit, 

sailing somewhere in the immense between-interim, 

dreaming—edging towards the next life. 

I am grieving, 

I do not trouble about the essence–  

it is beyond me. I am handcuffed 

to the former flesh and blood woman 

who is still voicelessly eloquently 

possessed of my sky my mind my streets 

 within without.   

In spite of scriptures and sages 

and their vision, 

questions convulse my old frame.  

But must I wither into every knowledge? 

Does not great wisdom sometimes cry  

and curse its implacable omniscience?  

(March-April’25)