Who Are You in my Heart?

Shailly Pandey

Who are you in my heart? 

What constant settles into my aching, 
Delicious, transcendent? 
Who creates luscious raindrops
From my parched eyes? 
The you of my gold dreams,
The you who left me stranded 
In velvet torrents of deserted
blue sleep.
Who are you in my heart? 

What does my breath unknowingly chase, 
Relentless, restless? 
Why does my breath command my lips to bow,
to press against the contours of footprints? 
Who, in trapping me now,
Has tripped and been caught? 
Who are you in my heart? 

In the abundance of absence, 
This world hums with rightness. 
Even in a slight second, you lavish me
With each of nirvana’s boons. 
Who have I welcomed
In this honeyed-bargain of anguish? 
Who are you in my heart? 

I don’t understand what far-away harmony
thunders my heart-strings,
But in surrendering the reality of my ego,
I have found a kind of opposite.  
Has sorrow-night already washed 
In the midday’s meeting-light?
Who are you in my heart? 

In what continues of darkness,
One idol of light refuses to flicker.
Fire stretches down its fingers today,
Burning my world divine.
And I hear a midnight sound 
In decay and in life. 
Who are you in my heart? 

How do mute joy and mute grief
Nestle jewels in the hollow of my throat? 
What love-like bangles do the prides of paradise 
Slide up life’s graceful wrists? 
What does carefree, childish creation 
Weave into the world’s drumming life-rhythm? 
Who are you in my heart?