A duckling floats in a pond nearby; Sita’s eyes follow its course
A movement so serene, so suave yet stirring remorse
For behind the trail, the pond reflects a veraciously ghastly sight
Not past, not present but a moonless future night

They have kept Sita captive on the other side of the shore
Her freedom is still far-flung, besieged inside a closed door
On a cosmic time scale, she sits to sweep the length of time
Aloof from outside where the world calls her grime

In the courteous vibes of Ashok, she listens to the spectral singing of the moon
Imploring with her gestures for she must have her lover soon
In the same solitary succession of events, an year crawls
Surely a juncture in the theatre where the curtain falls

A betraying year it was, which kept her world, her Lord apart
Why is she made a dupe in a battle putting right and wrong in a horse-cart?
Now when the misery is finally over
It’s time for her liberty……but would it no more hover?

The winds are unshackled, the waves redirected
For she must leave the Vatika of Ashok for a felicity newly erected
In a few moments she will stand upfront with her deity
Would it be through words, or just eye to eye glances, to shed away the extended anxiety?

In the midst of heaven and hell
There was a rupture hard to tell
On her advent to the homeland, waiting for her was a bedlam of emotions
For in the procession, she could meet faces asking questions

On her face she confronts an arresting reality she did not expect
On all times her anticipation was for sympathy and respect
Following her island torment was upright another plague
When even her love, her Lord solicited for a mandate so vague

Your freedom Sita is not for free, there is a price you must pay
Either walk into the blaze or forever in indignity you will lay
The walk was made, the virtue re-proclaimed
All lamps were lit. Celebrations and festivity all very well sustained

In books a freedom which goes down so grand
Transported a suspicion in one of the strand

Here in the culmination a basic question is clayed
Is freedom in its core foundations for free,
Or the head is incessantly put to be slayed?