The Mirror Inside

- P K Vijayan But I was another woman then,

tamed by walls, held by rules,
a walker in cautious silences
that hid the vast spaces I knew
populated by generations of still-borns:
a populace magnificent in their absence
in my head. But then, when time bent
a little - passages from day to night they would flow again, unfrozen,
come alive in my spell-bound eyes,
weave my myriad voices unfamiliar
into a history unknown to man.
I was spectacular women invincible,
worshipped and contemptuous kind;
I was maleness aroused to frenzy,
by my own feminines. Or I spent
hours in unfaithful arms perfect beloveds
in grand tragedies of perfect betrayal. I was
visitor in secret lands I shared
only with moody seasons fleeting.
I was myth mother and primordial lover,
slave mistress princess queen,
I redrew the world and its wastelands,
and blazed with unspecifiable immortalities.
I was then
the discoverer of the magic of loneliness.
But I am another woman now,
tamed by walls, held by rules,
a walker cautious in silences,
reminded distantly, without regret,
of histories unknown to man.