By: Pramod Rastogi

Walking up a mountainous path
I saw you bathing
Under a cascade not too high
In its languid flow.
Draped in white linen
You stood, eyes closed,
Arms held above the forehead
As if in a still-dancing pose.
Hypnotized, I stood there,
Witness to this heavenly sight.

So sensitive was the moment,
Even the sound of my breath
Could have let the moment go.
Speechless by the visual,
My eyes meandered lazily
Over the sinuous paths
In its search for words in tribute
To the sensuous landscape
In its mystic convulsions
That was femininely yours.

As the words betrayed me,
Contemplation flew in
To dig out that one inspiration
Which would propel me
To rally its troop of words
To the cause of the beauty
Whose nectar I inhaled
At that magical instant.
As I approached you,
A lightning storm struck.

Yet the silence stood strong,
Unswayed by the rumblings
That shook me from inside.
Lucky was the drape
That had you in its folds.
Lucky was the water, streaming
Over its bed of sinuous contours.
This was the last frontier.
I was in a mesmerized state,
Time Seemed to Exist No More.

Suddenly you opened your eyes
And looked at me, a stranger.
The time of reckoning had sounded.
You hesitated and you blushed.
Heavens opened and the sun shone
As you smiled at me.
I blushed, and subdued,
I smiled back at you.
Soaked in ardor for each other,
Passion peeped through our eyes.

I wished our pristine love
Not be consumed by the raging fire
That, once lit, would need daily firewood
To maintain its burning spree.
Fulfillment seeped inside me
As I stepped back from the edge
With an unquenchable thirst intact
That will keep alight at each twilight
The memory of this day
Tugging at my soul.

***

Pramod Rastogi is a Professor Emeritus at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne (EPFL), based in Lausanne, Switzerland.