A Winter Morning in Banaras

You wake up early in the morning, open the gate
of the rest house
and go out in an ocean of fog.

The river is just awake but it lay almost immobile
like a grandmother, graceful,
arranging her acts, feeling her hands and legs,
remembering about the sound of chants,
bells, conch shells
and earthen lamps last night
before she finally wakes up. In the morning,
rivers always wear their best dreams.

Here the river is a vast occurrence, almost as if
a huge crescent moon
lying forever on the ground
for the people to touch its lustre, its old sharp edge,
the liquid calmness,
empathy and abstraction, its own syllabus
of ablution and penance
on its course through Banaras.

You are also trying to arrange your thoughts
about your yesterday, the day before,
the last decade
Your knots and breaths in the continuity
of time, monochrome
and without any profundity of dreams in that.

The riverine edifices and temples hide in the mist
like opaque hints
of solidity of grain flakes on the edge of a bowl,
white, full of skimmed milk
and nothing else. Only a few gulls are now awake,
measuring the depth of the haze
with their slow flaps. No boats are visible yet.

But you know they are always there in the folds
of the fog
like effects of a cause, preparing hard,
like us,
for a long, dreamless day
on the flowing waters of the Ganga
in the holy city of Banaras.

Sekhar Banerjee is a Pushcart Award and Best of the Net nominated poet. He has been published in StandIndian LiteratureInk Sweat and TearsThe Bitter OleanderThe LakeBetter Than Starbucks, Thimble Literary Magazine and elsewhere. He hails from Jalpaiguri – an old tea town in sub-Himalayan West Bengal, India. He lives in Kolkata.

Featured image: Vishal Mak / Unsplash