Nadia Giordana
With Closed Eyes
By Rajnish Mishra

Closed eyes show
what the eyes miss when open:
Narrow lanes, stone steps,
domes, temples, river-
Not any river
but the one Ganga chosen
As the opening chapter
of my life near water.
Yes, those days;
not yet lost to oblivion
Pushed down
the bottomless pit of unconscious;
But those days
kept alive for the vision
That lightless arises
from the mind; held precious.
Wonderful, first time,
sweet as love I remember,
They say when looked at,
backwards, once its lost.
Pain and joy
both jointly arise and meld in one
As metals that alloy,
so different,
yet become then one.
Joy is the thing
that’s bought with pain as cost,
Or, is it pain for which
all joys we squander?