Ardhanari

I walked down
the same stairs
you walked that night
into sweet oblivion,
red and white
draped over
the teeming brown,
a quiet readying-
not for a fight,
but to give
and receive you
through the sacred fire
that I walked through,
with you

and I walked that day
like never before,
a majestic stillness
draping me, carrying me
through dead voices
trapped in coffins -
those redundant stories
of right and wrong,
flimsy threads
that just couldn't hold
new chants, new songs
coming alive

voices drowned forever
in the visionary anger
that cleansed my sight
in one instant;
who was I, you asked,
too scared to shout,
and I walked on
as if in a trance;
silent mudras
of sight and sound,
dancing, whirling
in an explosion of light

swallowing forms
familiar and strange,
where man and woman
fused seamlessly
into one,
drawing the nameless
in the pupils of eyes
and warm cells of a heart
still being formed.