Cantata for a Riderless Horse (with Sitar and Flute)

For D.S.L.

I

A child dreams of a man on a flying trapeze,Face swathed in pink tulle,

Bomb tucked to his belly.Behind him, a car squares off in air, wheels lambent—all turning.

In the darkness of senseEven the birds are still.

The circus tent catches fire,The bomb lands miraculously in a pile of straw dragged from the stables.

The fire is insuperable, seemingly without cause,The bomb a misshapen egg hurts no one

The tent in flames is a rag and bone shop:Hovel of memory.

II

We like to think of the inner lifeAs the cause of things.

One might as well say that the happinessOf Sanskrit is the cause of speech

As Novalis did when he was very young.Was he watching death round the corner, past the broken barn

On the mountain side with the tangle of blue flowersNo one else noticed?

Death in the shape of an old horseTied to a laurel tree,

Acid in its nostrils, snorting.I know that the stables I saw in my dream

(Source of the straw that cradled the bomb)Still stand. They are full of anxious horses.

III

In the Ashwamedha rite, a white horse let looseRoams through territory war must claim.

The horse is sacrificedAnd a great queen (I think of Draupadi here)

Lies down beside the smoking parts.In Pune, when I was a child,

We lived on Ganeshkind Road.In the wedding season

I often saw a pale horse bearing a bridegroom,His face veiled in flowers.

I willed her to sit beside himClutching the horse's flanks,

A bride, sari storm red,Slashed with gold.

On the garden line,On the white sheet mother hung

In midsummerBefore the rains came

Male and female turned to shadowsMixing with the horse's flesh.

IV

I had no chiseled gold to bring,You had no horse, no drums.

All we had was a dusty town, a mountain top,Wild flowers, ceaseless mist.

I married you in the midst of what I feltWas a war in my own life.

But who the parties were I could not say,Even if forced to the edge of a cliff.

The war continued,But now you were a party to it.

In the midst of this we had our children.With what lay to hand,

A scrap of paper, a ream of string,We made a shelter of straw

With a wishbone in it.The bleached bone snapped.

The young ones turnedInto precious hostages.

We bought a house in the woodsA stalwart thing of wood and brick.

When dinner plates chipped,Or a squirrel dropped down the chimney

A black walnut clutched in its claws,When deer ravaged the blue spruce

Or bullfinches sucked up earthwormsAt the edge of a pond

Where our children swamMud splayed on their thighs,

I glimpsed the desolationOf earthly paradise.

V

Reared on betrayalI could not bear to be happy.

I needed at all costsThe penury of the real.

I flinched at truthBuried in muscle and skin,

Intricate loops of blood,Mute harrowing.

Survival of the fittest parts of the selfI thought was what was called for.

Like a woman who wears a wigTo conceal stubble on the skull,

I coveted the split endsOf desire.

Hurt poured into our hands.When I touched her, I flinched:

A child clinging to a horse,Pink suit shimmering with sweat,

Eyes squeezed tightWilling the man on the flying trapeze to fall,

Willing the bomb to splinter his ribsInto tiny bits of glass,

The tent etched in cruel colors,Sizzling ash.

VI

There is something desolate in usThat tries to lay love waste.

But love too has its daring,Its unbegotten species of sense making.

I stand here dirt in my hairFrom a mountain road

Where we saw a white horse rear its hooves.A helicopter rattled by.

Was it spraying crops...