dancer

Bharatanatyam Dancer

                              for Leela Samson

Spaces in the electric air divide themselves
     in circular rhythms, as the slender
grace of your arms and bell-tied ankles
     describe a geometric topography, real, cosmic,
     one that once reverberated continually in
a prescribed courtyard of an ancient temple

in South India. As your eyelids flit and flirt, and
     match the subtle abhinaya in a flutter
of eye-lashes, the pupils create an
     unusual focus, sight only ciliary muscles
     blessed and cloaked in celestial kaajal
could possibly enact.

The raw brightness of kanjeevaram silk, of
     your breath, and the nobility of antique silver
adorns you and your dance, reminding us of
     the treasure chest that is only
     half-exposed, disclosed just enough, barely —
for art in its purest form never reveals all.

Even after the arc lights have long faded,
     the audience, now invisible, have stayed over.
Here, I can still see your pirouettes, frozen
     as time-lapse exposures, feel
     the murmuring shadow of an accompanist's
intricate raga in this theatre of darkness,

a darkness where oblique memories of my
     quiet Kalakshetra days filter,
matching your very own of another time,
     where darkness itself is sleeping light,
     light that merges, reshapes, and ignites,
dancing delicately in the half-light.

But it is this sacred darkness that endures,
     melting light with desire, desire that simmers
and sparks the radiance of your
     quiet femininity, as the female dancer
     now illuminates everything visible: clear,
poetic, passionate, and ice-pure.

Note: The line-end rhyme-scheme — a b a c c a ... d b d e e d ... f b f g g f ..— maps and mirrors the actual classical dance step-pattern and beat — ta dhin ta thaye thaye ta. Also the left-hand margin indentations match the same scheme and form.

from Postmarked India: New & Selected Poems (HarperCollins); The London Magazine, Acumen, Wasafiri, Gentleman, Gallerie International, Inlaks Foundation Book, Findings on Ice, and others; and forthcoming in Blue Nude: New Selected Poems & Translations 1980-2010.