Puppet’s Eye—1

A feeble note

A single bee-eater shedding feathers

A single footprint by the water

With a puppet’s eye,
someone watches from afar

Traces of those
who left in the night
rise to the surface

Thirst appears
But from behind the mound no telling
whose

Unquenchable

Asking its way around
it pursues the traveller.

Puppet’s Eye—2

Everywhere light begins to chirp
and the birds take on a glow

Those who departed
went while asleep in their own shadows
They left, having dried up like tears

Inside the clue
no clue either

The puppet could just go off to sleep
in the sun-breeze.

Puppet’s Eye—3

Their departure
flashed in the puppet’s eye

They were so full of color
that anyone at all could subdue them

So alluring
there was no synonym for their departure

If they’d wanted
they could’ve let their dancing
go in their place.

Could’ve frozen in a pose
and loosed their abhinaya like an arrow

The softness of their speech
The feigning of their bodies
Their acts of love

All in the puppet’s eye.

Puppet’s Eye—4

It watches them
They let it watch

That gaze
shows in their limbs
not in the mirror

The dogs go a long way staring after a scent

A sword quivers in the hint of a breeze
a butterfly of air falls to the ground

It watches them
They let it watch

That gaze
shows in their limbs
not in the mirror

In a frenzy they stand up
and have some water

The moon
pulls back the reflection
from the lake.

Puppet’s Eye—5

One desire was to create without image

And desire
true to itself went chasing after image

That’s the way
they came
and went hissing
from place to place

Howling, they burst into flames
And ablaze
they set all ablaze

Became so full of words
that calming them down
turned into yet another piece of work

Then so quiet
that even awakening them won’t awake them

Even so
the fire blazed

The hissing went on.

Puppet’s Eye—6

Nothing but images
They were just images
from which other images arose
and some others vanished.

Only after
they became too many
could you steer clear of them
Only if you could invent them
could you then sneer at them

It was images alone
that created
the power to create
and destroy it too.

To create joy
and sorrow
those looms
that appeared right before your eyes
those were the looms
where sorrow and joy lived.

All through the province
it was nothing
but these loom images.

Deep within the breath
fingers kept on trembling.

Puppet’s Eye—7

It begins to rain
in the puppet’s eye

To save their tribe
the ants
begin to circle

Scattering the grain
they lift the bales

And
standing upright
a pyre just sits itself down

In the puppet’s eye
the puppet’s colors rise to the surface

Like a snake
staring
some kind of rainbow
arches over the scene

If you look closely
there’s not a thing
in the puppet’s eye.

Puppet’s Eye—8

The story went out
and no one had the good sense
to walk away from the fire

They kept sitting there
stroking the embroidery of their shawls
smiling with their golden teeth

Dawn broke
in the puppet’s eye

In place of the sun
there was coal
smoldering.

Puppet’s Eye—9

Right in the middle of the trail
were the bones of small birds
glinting in the sun

If you called them by name, they
didn’t fly into view

Their feet were tender
With the colors of their throats
they chirped around in the woods

There were eggs everywhere
beneath the bushes.

If you looked into the bones
the grief didn’t show.

Puppet’s Eye—10

They got up
and before they took a drink of water
decorated the wall
with the puppet’s eye

They felt a thirst
that was visible from the wall

They were in a hurry
and water didn’t find its way
inside their bodies

They danced the pupils of their eyes
up and then down.

Water
shuddered
like some bone

in the puppet’s eye.

Puppet’s Eye—11

It felt too sleepy ––
the puppet’s eye

but it wouldn’t fall asleep

Was it stubbornness
or patience?
Intention
or disinterest?
It was hard to tell

Somewhere below
in the puppet’s hand
in the iridescence of the scimitar

sometimes you can hear
the blinking of an eye

that it couldn’t hear
with a puppet’s ear.

Puppet’s Eye—12

Nothing rained
from its eye

Nothing
that was like a void

a void
that streamed
into desire

in sand
on sand
without sand
an impression
in whose sport
so much color showed
that it too got scared

being only a puppet’s eye…..

Puppet’s Eye—13

Sand
was in storm

and it was open ––
the puppet’s eye.

To seek shelter
several nirgunis* came
and went

The birds
that had sand in their eyes ––
they also came

Grass
that grew in the sand
The dew
that fell,
fell further
with the quivering of the blades ––
that came too.

Sunlight
that drank all the dew ––
that too had to come
like sunlight ––
that came too.

And in this way
there was no end
in the puppet’s eye

It saw nothing.

(*Nirguni: One who believes God is without form or attributes.)