Menu

The Cloud Messenger

by Bakul Banerjee

Bakul Banerjee’s poem is inspired by the renowned Sanskrit poet Kalidasa’s “Meghadutam”. “Meghadutam” or the Cloud Messenger is one of his short works which describes the story of a Yaksha, a heavenly creature, trying to send a message to his faraway beloved using a cloud as the messenger.

The monsoon always came with a vengeance.
I, at sixteen, paused in reverence, for days
and nights, then nights and days, many days.
Clouds made up the leaky roof of the world.

The rain flooded the fresh food market.
Mothers cooked with whatever they had
on hand. Fathers lamented the lack of fish.
The sweltering summer heat was forgotten.

If I, a restless teen, could, I would stay in
and write bad love poems hiding them
under the Mechanics textbook. Girls like me
yearned for their own Yakshas, the lovers.

Born in an undefined celestial realm, they
may have lived next door or in the next town.
But I knew better. My Yaksha wouldn’t
know anything about the Cloud Messenger.

My Yaksha did not care about the words
of Kalidasa, the poet for lovers through ages.
He wouldn’t know how to instruct the ominous
cloud with thunders in its belly, how to find me.

Soon, wrapping an old sari tight around me,
I stepped out with the black umbrella, parting
the curtain of beaded raindrops. With the farm
women swaying in rice fields, I waded through

water flowing around my humble sandals.
The warm rain swished away dirt making
my feet pretty. With just one look at them,
the Cloud Messenger would know his destination,

but my Yaksha never gave him any message.

Picture from https://www.flickr.com/photos/vinothchandar/

An award winning author and poet Bakul Banerjee published her first volume of poems, titled “Synchronicity: Poems” in 2010. Her poems and stories appeared in literary magazines. She also presents poetry reading and workshops and is involved with several literary organizations. Bakul received her Ph.D. degree from The Johns Hopkins University, Maryland.
Read previous post:
You are Rain

In Inna Dulchevsky’s poem, rain transforms into many images and becomes a multi-dimensional metaphor for one’s own soul.

Close