In the archaeological museum
during an interlude when there were no visitors

The yet-to-be-identified human statue
returned to its past.

From a corridor of dead clocks
a door opened to times hidden.

In the dark alleys
the lampposts of exhausted light
bloomed once again.

From the memories of the soil
resurrected cities.
The ships anchored in water-oblivion
set sail.

Those missing
reappeared as paths on land
and canals in the sea.

From both sides of the road
the vanquished and the abandoned
before the waves drowned them
were crying:
Only this far to go
only this far…

Beyond dark-years
the dawn-less forest grew dense.

The paths that end abruptly
far away in the valley
or nearby on the mountaintop
the feeble voice of the guide
the surprise curves
where the lone tusker tusk broken wounded
lies in wait.

The loved ones imagined into being
from the opposite side
the prakrit1  of streams
the arrow-struck songs of koels2  
dead before having seen a spring
the solitary gestures of trees
blossoming flowers and birds
the primeval silence of the rocks
pregnant with statues and springs.

The ones hunted in their own caves
are being uprooted
leaving behind weapons and languages
roots severed and branches withered
until the forest inside impregnated with seasons
burns down to ashes outside.

The sand-whirls where camels die writhing
the oasis-touch of love at the height of fever
the fire-winds that rise out of blue
the clouds that fade without raining
like dreams
in the depth of fire-moments
the sea-pyres burned.

The ones who on their own wounds journey
return after the diabolic years of failed voyages

flesh rotten shedding scales
and lay down ready for self-immolation
on shores where screams do not echo
till the tranquil white sky above turns
a tumultuous red.

II

All the visitors have left
the lamps have gone out one by one
the gods emperors prophets and poets
all have vanished.
In the dark
when orphaned once again
the female statuette-body broken
in a battle or an earthquake
queries a beheaded male statue:
which way
and which state in nirvana3 
oh Lord,
this posture
as stone and mud.

*He who was gone thus- an inversion of the Buddhist term thadagata, which means ‘he who has come thus,’ i.e. the Buddha himself.