Dal cheeni

i heart this poem.
it's beautiful.

The Cinnamon Peeler.

If I were a cinnamon peeler
I would ride your bed
And leave the yellow bark dust
On your pillow.

Your breasts and shoulders would reek
You could never walk through markets
without the profession of my fingers
floating over you. The blind would
stumble certain of whom they approached
though you might bathe
under rain gutters, monsoon.

Here on the upper thigh
at this smooth pasture
neighbour to you hair
or the crease
that cuts your back. This ankle.
You will be known among strangers
as the cinnamon peeler's wife.

I could hardly glance at you
before marriage
never touch you
--your keen nosed mother, your rough brothers.
I buried my hands
in saffron, disguised them
over smoking tar,
helped the honey gatherers...

When we swam once
I touched you in the water
and our bodies remained free,
you could hold me and be blind of smell.
you climbed the bank and said

this is how you touch other women
the grass cutter's wife, the lime burner's daughter.
And you searched your arms
for the missing perfume

and knew

what good is it
to be the lime burner's daughter
left with no trace
as if not spoken to in the act of love
as if wounded without the pleasure of a scar.

You touched
your belly to my hands
in the dry air and said
I am the cinnamon
Peeler's wife. Smell me.

-by Michael Ondaatje.


write to me of extinct Shakespearean love..

(and touch me with dalchini.) :P

i know this poem makes an horrible association between me and the love struck gaggle of 14 yr-old twilight fanatics oozing goo and mush out their ears.

trust me, i beg to refrain from even the slightest hints of that association.
and no i DO NOT read romance novels neither.
too cheesy.

but hey, we can all be allowed the occasional emo, right?! :s
-eeda.

p.s
and for those who don't know, cinnamon is dalcheeni.
and for those who don't know what dalcheeni is, ur not fob enough. :S

pps.
photo credits: crumbling cinnamon by Karatemaus on deviantart.com

pps. i dont mean chini as in cheena people okay?