all that I left with you

drops, a photograph by Totomai Martinez

I left a losing thing in the shadow
of leaves of the lone standing teak,
it was a pond of reminiscence that
snatched it from me, that losing
thing, now submerged, lost from me.

an ant answered the call when I
arrived at the wooden frame prop-
-ed as an entryway to your soul, and
I knocked a repeated knock, but
there was no opening, no close.

will you return all that I left?
can you walk on the ice of my hand,
which pulsates like venom in cold?
I neither expect nor prod, I am
a hermit walking by and away from you.

I remind you all of me that still is
with you, to ask you to return
those drops I left, that smile I
left in the lightness of your arms,
return to me that tempest of my eyes.

return back to me all I left, or not,
I’ll be asleep in the end, and aware
of all that I have left in this valley
nuzzling the horizon, rearing the
river of a memory in its womb.

.

I began to write keeping some other image in mind, but my muse took me somewhere else. After scrutinizing carefully through the wondrous collection of Totomai Martinez, I came across this photograph.

Maybe, the muse responded to the song I was humming a few minutes back. It is one of my favorites; it is in Hindi but English subtitles are added in this video:

And I ended up watching the entire movie. 😉

For dverse Poetics.