DRAUPADI - 83

  

Prafulla Kumar Mohanty's 

DRAUPADI - 83

Draupadi’s Admiration and tribute To Bhisma

 

News came Bhisma has fallen

the brave wise invincible celibate

booned with wishful death had a death wish

laid his arms when he saw Shikhandi

in Arjuna's chariot, as per his promise

to give up when he encounters a eunuch,

Shikhandi was Amba reborn to avenge

her contumely in her last birth as a Princess:

Bhisma's armoured body was torn by Arjuna

with tearful arrows in eyeless self abuse,

The tallest Prince of Men fell streaming

blood from million arrows pierced into his

divine frame on a bed of arrows.

The earth sank in respect, Arjuna

awakened Ganga, his celestial Mother

with a saluting arrow and Ganga poured

her melted heart into her great son's

thirsting throat in motherly jets of love.

The armies stood in awe, the sky

folded the sun in hasty retreat to mourn

Bharat's great son's horizontal withdrawal

from a life of sacrificial grandeur.

Kaurava Pandava women in camps

folded their numb hands in mournful prayer.

Draupadi went to Kurukshetra with aarati,

washed Bhisma's feet bowed, placed

incense at the feet of Ganga son

who would leave the world when the sun

entered Makar solstice inaugurating

the brighter phase for the world. Bhisma

blessed her all happiness with a pained sigh.

 

Draupadi walked alone and stood

her heart was blank, mind dazed.

How graceful Bhisma looks!

In arrow stuck body,

lying on Arjuna's arrow bed

purging blood glistens in heroic tribute

to a body uncontaminated by the world!

But is this dark land the place

for his dying rest? The fetid smell

of rotting bodies, burning flesh

the air surcharged with hate and violence

smelling like infernal filth

nauseates the soul in humid rage,

his heroic diadem still befits him

his royal blood although he was never

a king, by sacrificial choice, glistens

in this putrid murk of man's lunacy

warning the living to give up insane

arrogance to enjoy God's green earth.

 

Draupadi saw a tall dark shadow

standing arms akimbo to block her way

Draupadi paused looked, it melted

the entire earth was under the Shade:

Draupadi asked, who are you, real

or I am hallucinating - I am real

I am Death   -  Draupadi laughed O you

insubstantial dark nothing move over

you eclipse our destiny forever,

I know you are here to enjoy the scene

the bone heaps on the soaked earth

go, go, go now the  sun has seen it all,

Moon too will see and shed drops

the earth will go on,

war peace prosperity poverty will alternate,

you cannot overshadow

life's irrational compromises on earth.

Draupadi moved on, her pace slackened

by the grand light of Bhisma

raised over the earth by the arrow bed.