Fancy For The Damsel Cloud Poem by Debayudh Chatterjee

Back in my childhood days
Amongst the clouds, I used to play
And once a damsel cloud came
And asked me eagerly
What's your name?
And I replied-
Abracadabra!

The damsel cloud boiled in anger
'Lie! Can any name be such? '
I replied, 'Pretty much.
Now do hear my tale..'

And she blemished, 'Never I will
All those cliché kings and queens
All the same that sword and shield
And the same that lordly prince
On his mighty Pegasus-
Had enough
It's so gross...

I said, 'For you
I Shall write anew...'

She said, 'Really, will you
That's so lovely
Make it a detailed one
Remember, will you
And give it to me once you're done....'
I told her, 'For you
I shall write a world...'

And as I wrote a page or two
Spirits took over
My brain and sinew

I searched for her and returned back
To those clouds of my juvenile days
And searched for known ones. Found none
And all that were of unknown face..

But one seemed a bit familiar
Different amongst those who gathered
I came forth and finally approached her
'Are you that Damsel cloud, are you her
Oh are you so...'

And she said, 'I don't know
I cant recall... I really don't know...'
I reminded, 'You're the one
Who asked me to write and so..
She replied, You have it now?
Drown them in the turbulent flow...
And yes listen- I'm no more
A cloud and they
Call me ‘Rain' these days...'
And as she finished, in a drizzle
Head to toe- the whole of me
She drenched and eloped
With clouds and rain
In some far reverie glen
In some land, far so far...
Far beyond my sight...'

'They call me Rain these days
They call me Rain these days-'
Echoing these within myself
I remained silent and sat down
In clothes drenched cats and dogs
Under a tree
I remained seated
For the Rain, or perhaps the cloud...

And right then
Another Rain
Recognised me and said, 'What's
To be so sad in that...
Go, go back- and write anew
The monsoon's on
And thus all of us
Are busy raining across the globe.
You go back, concentrate...
And after the monsoon, ourselves we'll
All go to you, do wait...'

I'll write a world
And to write a world
Thus as I had forsaken home
Eloped from home and built another
Amidst the dense woods with
Pen and paper as room-mates...

I'll live alone. And have a bits
All I can
Make out of
Fistfuls of grain and sand
And of all who come in my dreams
I write on, on and on...!

The fantasy that has guts
To dream myriads
Of the same earth
That is mine... My canard

Crouched for days,
as I wrote and wrote
Crouched for nights
I wrote and wrote
Days faded, nights too gone
And when my pen was forlorn
Without words,
I recalled
Days or dates, months or years
Didn't count
Those at all
And the write-up I unravelled
As I promised to write a world
I haven't written a page at all

And right then, in sheer force
It rained upon my writing book
Upon my life's writing book
It rained upon this forest
As outside under the greenwood tree
Peacocks triumphed, danced in glee
Birds twittered and changed twigs
Said the bird, 'In this wood
For the poet, We still do live
Said they all, For the poet
We haven't, oh we haven't
Got lost at all
or have lost even a fig...

From his cottage then the poet
Gazed far on and on
On the woods, oh the fields
Beside the river
Where forever
None has gone,
Has stepped in never-
And today that Poet can see
Beside the rapids, under the tree
In that land, hop to and fro
Wrapped in gold, Cloud-does
Of juvenile, that Cloud-doe...!