The orchard was fragrant and slouched in the wind.
I had lost my sense of time,
And each break between
Utterances seemed endless. A great gulf of time
Opened before us. We chatted for centuries, talking
About the same things, over
And over, now with one pair of lips, now with another,
All of us, you, me and our shadows, failing to remember
That the view we were now contesting
Was the one we had defended earlier.
We held a dialogue, like two fauns,
Another species, half animal, half human.
And I realised there were lots of us in the garden and forest,
Our faces covered in hair. Strange beasts.
And our bats had settled in the trees,
Singing their blind prothalamions.
The night held its glassy synthesis,
Grew immense, an intense Neruda night,
That I had to slip
Into the shadow of the tree to escape.
And there I hide still.
© Nikhil
