If Eliot had seen Ganga’s waters gleam
Past April’s brunt, melting in numinous flow
By the Palash, where Thakur strolls in a hushed dream,
On sterile ashes are lotuses left aglow
The fumes of his arati hum a chant, that
Like premature rain, threaten to lay memories bare,
Of leaves toasted astray, that sink soft and flat
On a river that becomes time’s vacant prayer
The early mangoes inject the leadened breeze
From those who had free wills of coloured glass
The pyres of their broken roots are at ease
As deceased shame bears new tendrils of grass
As the last embers of hyacinths and pines on the fires crack
Like murmuring atoms of dust on a serpentine railway track
Arup K. Chatterjee 