Shakuntala Poem by Bharati Diggikar

Shakuntala

Shakuntala sits by a lake.
Her slight fingers unable to restrain
leaping black locks of her hair
Cascading over her eyes, face, shoulders
In the warm spring breeze.
Lotuses bloom in the lake.
As beautiful as her face.
The forest eyes her warmly,
A familiar slender figure,
A young maiden from hermitage.
Today, writing a message
With her trembling tender nails
on a lotus leaf.

She is enamored by the
Royal charm of her beloved
A King passing from the forest, her rescuer.
He rescued her from an insistent bee
that was persecuting her with a soft hum
Mistaking her face
With a pink lotus in full bloom.
The tiny evil,
actually, a neutral agent of pollination.

Shakuntala, an abandoned love-child,
brought up In the strictures of hermitage
By her sagely foster-father
Is smitten by the killer bee- Love!
To be devastated
For a second time.

She writes, ‘'O handsome King!
From whence you come
What you seek I know not.
You are the Unknown personified for me.
When my eyes rest on
Your splendor,
My whole being comes alive
To the meaning of spring.''

Shadows are gathering
Around the lake
Over her head
In her life.
Dear Shakuntala!
He who is irresistibly drawn
To your innocence today
will leave you tomorrow.
The call of his urban sophistication
Will make him forget you.
Maiden, you will be cast away with
Your love-child.
life's story completes a circle.
Tragedy's armor is ready to hunt you.

Sweet maiden, destiny is calling you.
Shed your virgin's clothes,
Get dressed as a warrior mother,
A warrior's mother.