1.
By that tree, that temple
Thick with gods, drums and bells.
Waiting for an offering, a cow, still
except for a fly-flicker tail.
And beside this, that dancing
Lake.
The Lake that was -
The Lake that will be -
The Lake that froze in my heart -
The Lake that melted drop by drop by drop
And immersed me.
And I was a tree by this
Lake, and when the cattle
rubbed and rubbed their backs on my bark,
erased, I fell into the Lake.
Then the swimming in my dreams.
And I was the flotsam on
the Lake
some kid picked up and tossed;
back I veered (again), out I was flung (again),
and thus flung, again, again, to return
each time nearer.
I am in that lake, and I
am the Lake.
A lifelong relationship, yes, but only in
this life.
I, in Udaipur.
2.
And then I may have been a fruit
on the tree by the Lake.
Plop! as I fell, a parrot dived low to catch
me.
Then how, oh with what relish, he chewed
me.
I remember ... that rough beak, that
consoling tongue.
And I may have been a bell
that fell
from the anklet of the Lake-Palace dancer.
So some anklet is tinkling in me today
I may have been a teardrop in a eye behind
veil
Like the taste of a teardrop, always tinkling
on my tongue.
Someone in me, always
thirsty to step out of the veil.
3.
At the shore of this Lake,
in some middle-class family,
a fourth daughter, born.
No applause -
No drumbeat -
But the shadow of a silence.
A storm brewed on the Lake
And went out to sea.
A fourth daughter has no
heart
Theres no one she calls her own.
A fourth daughter is like the Udaipur Lake
Eyes always dancing.
Is the anklet of the Lake Palace dancer
Tinkling laugh without reason.
Today by the Lake,
over her past births,
this fourth daughter muses.
4.
Have I
nothing to offer?
No homage
to quench my ancestors?
Not a daughter
but a sour berry?
Not on a stem
but on a prickly bush?
Not a daughter
Not the sweet Lake of Udaipur
But
Brackish backwater
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