A Frightening Dream

A huge python crawls in dream again

Massive shadowy figure of long grey serpent,

Moves with tremendous force in cold obscurity.

From my mythological memory I recall of Vasuki *

Shiva's faithful companion,

A garland of grace and beauty

Wrapped around his blue neck so gingerly.

Tonight he wasn't there

As an accomplice of ocean churning

For seekers of immortality

Tonight he was an ordained employee of death

In cold blooded merciless cruelty

Destroying and devouring all

What was built with love and care.

Walls and bricks fall all around

Dust and smoke blind the vision

Choking me out of my breath

I stood there in darkness

Shaking and trembling

Oh! How I wished to save just a little nook.

A silent prayer, a wishful thinking

Echoed in fearful heart

Hope of a tiny dwelling to be spared

Amid the fallen debris of rocks and iron

His coils and fangs will have mercy

For a little room where the most delicate  

The most helpless of all

A little innocent life lies

Blissfully unaware of lurking danger.

Just then I break away from sleep

All apprehension of that fateful event stops

A sense of relief takes over

Akin to when an earthquake shakes every thing

But in a next moment of afferent sensation

When the earth becomes still

One feels oneself alive again.

Fear grips my heart

A wakeful consciousness

Still disoriented,

Entwined with truth and illusion

Haunted by the vivid memory

Of a terrifying, wretched moment,

Struggles to regain and recompose.

For now all is calm in dark night

In quiet submission, whatever was spared

Stirs back to life again

Cobra wraps in his coils whoever

Or what so ever it wishes to wring

And leaves the rest unscathed.

Based loosely upon a dream.

Savita Tyagi

* Vasuki is the name of a snake in ancient Indian literature.