The Whispering Tree

Lovers can define love. What happens when a poet turns lover? He interprets it as a fever that "subsides after a week of nightmares." The poet describes fondness, if it fits as a perfect synonym of 'love, ' as smallpox. The lover bears "scarred memories" until death. He marks love as cancer that takes time to get diagnosed. The poet finds it insane as lovers "murmur, sing, laugh, quarrel, / and roam around, all, alone." Love, as he expounds, becomes "sweetest" when ubiquitous, and thus, he emerges as Radha. The merger was on the cards, perhaps! Had this not been true, Satchidanandan won't have corroborated love with the maladies. He became one with Radha and named it "unrealized!" Who else can portray love, if not a poet, in the light of the gopi who never admitted her attainment? A sense of submission prevails in this collection