Prayer to the Muse

Contact author at guyind@rcn.com

 ( I wrote this poem in 1993 when I had lost my rhythm and flow in writing, praying to the Muse to return my gift, and She did return my gift.)

 

PRAYER TO THE MUSE

(by Churaumanie Bissundyal)

Reach my crippled hands,

hands withered with pain,

broken bones

having no instinct for joy;

bones all splintered in a sting of loneliness,

bandaged for a gain in strength

to write my next song.

I’m so shattered in this bleak valley of my failure,

become a wreckage that none wants to claim--

fallen from the dreamy twinkles of the mountain top,

where I once sat, entranced,

in the glitters of success, garlanded with cheer.

 I’m so lonely in the death of my rhythmic lines,

ever so lonely

in this ditch of wretchedness,

frayed, ravaged by thorns of jeer--

no soft, friendly hands to touch my wounds with care;

no warm, tender touch to salve my ruptured knees

to climb the mountain again.

Only, only,

I’m rationed with memories in this tempest of pain,

become a fallen seeker,

inward blind,

with no power to feed my heart with joy,

no vision to tune my spirit

in concord rhythm

with the lilting wings of the red-breasted robins

that breathe life in the sky

at the first smile of dawn.

Reach my listless dreams

ravaged to ruins by the prejudice of time.

Dreams that were once the flood of my blood

to seek the cadence of the wind,

the drums of the thunder

to scare the scimitar of the tyrant king.

(October 1993)