Kedarnath- A Saga Of A Night Poem by Aloke Mukherjee

I never lost foothold on the cliff in that night

I clung to the mother-rock breast for life-

I was not a rock-climber though, I was just cliff-hanger. In that black night,

the time flowed like molten jet lava- it had been raining

since yesterday. Mandakini was rising to touch the starless sky.


Such was the night, the cimmerian shade rumbling in the gorge below,

Why I did not loosen my grip and let me fall in the darkness for a oblivion?

What does these all mean? A free fall for a thousand feet would have been

a bliss! Craving for a few years more! I knew my cells were mutating even

at faster rate. My little pro tem home swept away in a vague gesture of a god.


Such is the life in a little niche of the rock, the blizzard swept past me,

the chill biting my bones, I was shaking horribly, the wind-cheater did

not hold any warmth. I tried to remember my old flame, as if sex could drown my pain,

the image of her plump sexy hillocks on the breast, her swaying gait with huge

behind could eventually erase this plight but it seemed better to lose me, a man

losing him as rocks and boulder, the gale, the incessant rain and nature's violent

rage. Till, how many days, I do not know, rough hands with human warmth touch

me again for a newer dream, a blue sky overcast with glimmering molten gold for a while.


I never lost foothold on the cliff in that night

I clung to the mother-rock breast for life-

I was not a rock-climber though, I was just cliff-hanger. In that black night,

the time flowed like molten jet lava- it had been raining

since yesterday. Mandakini was rising to touch the starless sky.


Such was the night, the cimmerian shade rumbling in the gorge below,

Why I did not loosen my grip and let me fall in the darkness for a oblivion?

What does these all mean? A free fall for a thousand feet would have been

a bliss! Craving for a few years more! I knew my cells were mutating even

at faster rate. My little pro tem home swept away in a vague gesture of a god.


Such is the life in a little niche of the rock, the blizzard swept past me,

the chill biting my bones, I was shaking horribly, the wind-cheater did

not hold any warmth. I tried to remember my old flame, as if sex could drown my pain,

the image of her plump sexy hillocks on the breast, her swaying gait with huge

behind could eventually erase this plight but it seemed better to lose me, a man

losing him as rocks and boulder, the gale, the incessant rain and nature's violent

rage. Till, how many days, I do not know, rough hands with human warmth touch

me again for a newer dream, a blue sky overcast with glimmering molten gold for a while.