Pilgrim’s Progress

Sukrita Kumar

Buried in the debris
near the blind well
in the jungle
are a thousand tales
nibbled by scurrying rats
and infected by amnesia

Bits of tales peep out
as if sticking their tongues
through fine slits
in the wrinkled surface
of the heap
hardening over time,
with more and more
thorny creepers and shrubs
gripping the forest
in a net
from which slip out

dead voices severed
from their bodies,

Compressed sighs
rising occasionally
as white smoke
and bouncing as cold echoes
against the walls of the deep black pit
spewing the romance,
hidden snugly,
of times immemorial
in the tunnel built,
as they say, from the
bottom of the well
to his majesty’s fort
at Tughlaghabad

The flash of light,
an end of the long night,

slides down the spiral steps
to kiss the mouth
of the passage
to the regal splendour
at the other end,
yielding fresh bodies
for the voices
and softening the earth
to impregnate her with a million
more legends of love…