NABANEETA DEV SEN

Mysteries of Memory
      30 December 1960, Cambridge, Massachusetts

Soundless rhythmless snow’s
                        unbroken blossom-shower.
The entire world is strewn
with white flowers, like a corpse. And then
you’re nowhere to be seen.
Everywhere I hear your name being called,
tracks of searching feet open up in the whiteness, deep
like mysterious depressions. . .
A green shrub gradually
turns into a white stone hill.
Looking in that direction, I know you can’t be seen.
                                    Time’s snows falling without limit,
                                    without respite. Dressing up
                                    the corpse of the present
                                                            in the mysteries of memory,
                                    we’re drowning, we’re losing ourselves,
                                    we’re being blotted out.