The Lost One

You exist in my mind

Like an island, not on the map

Of any known atlas;

 

Long ago, I knew you well.

I was the impatient April wind:

I ran through your forbidden forest

Tossing aside your deepest roots,

Shattering your green peaceful dreams,

Sharing my dark madness with you,

Needing only to chart a way

To the recesses of your mossy heart;

I knew you then, in great detail

And I could find my way to you

Across the great oceans

Unaided, without any map;

 

But my ship has ferried me far

And I sometimes wonder if you,

The island not on any map,

Really ever existed;

 

Everything seems hazy:

I remember vaguely your laugh

That used to break so suddenly

Like July rains in the mountains;

The shape of your dark eyes is lost.

The exact way your hair fell, loose,

After a bath, on the white swan,

The slender shape that was your neck…

Even that is not clear anymore:

 

I am forgetting them slowly

Like a person forgets

The happy days of his childhood,

 

They seem as unreal to me

As the colors of spring

During the winter days.

 

Diptesh Ghosh