GLOW OF HOPE

—after “Glow of Hope”,  Salwaram Haldankar, 1946
written from the Anustubh Vedic Form

she sits against the wall, orange
looming flicker drenching draped
pink cloth, her gaze is eternal
and her posture unwavering.

how I lay beneath her, languid
and material, ever changing:
my childish nature became
womanly, trapped by time’s river

overflowing the lit deepa.
take me from the shadow, undo
the pinned silk of my sari, gold
like the light eclipsed behind her

henna tipped hands, winged horses send
a chariot down, my arms up
towards the parting clouds, glorious
in the ascent to Indraloka.

Megana Adigal is an emerging Indian-American poet from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where she is currently a fourth-year undergraduate student. She studies Marketing and Creative Writing. She has been published in Montage Arts Journal.