according to the mahabharata, mistaking the meditating krishna for a deer, a hunter named jara shoots an arrow towards krishna's foot that fatally injures him. krishna forgives jara and dies. (detailed version in in-line comment).

from what chance blindness did my arrow start

striking down the cowherd king, reflecting—

dwarka sinking on the map of his heart

while flowers bloomed bright and birds continued

to sing

as if all this was just another stroke

of purusha on the canvas of prakriti.

what is an elegy but a soft cloak

to assuage the assault of memory?

jara, he said to me, i forgive you.

but i could not forgive myself for being

the chariot of his soul traversing through

life divine's jagged path of all dark sights

and seeing.

when he died he did not die all alone

(they are not dead yet they are dead to me)

a world of his own— he was all of them

and all of them this grave of words will hide

then see

towards goloka, his eyes lift sighing—

all the deaths, trapped in us, one by one

are dying.

~ ajay

24/5/2022