Purdah Analysis

Jade --

Stone of the side,

The antagonized



Side of green Adam, I

Smile, cross-legged,

Enigmatical,



Shifting my clarities.

So valuable!

How the sun polishes this shoulder!



And should

The moon, my

Indefatigable cousin



Rise, with her cancerous pallors,

Dragging trees --

Little bushy polyps,



Little nets,

My visibilities hide.

I gleam like a mirror.



At this facet the bridegroom arrives

Lord of the mirrors!

It is himself he guides



In among these silk

Screens, these rustling appurtenances.

I breathe, and the mouth



Veil stirs its curtain

My eye

Veil is



A concatenation of rainbows.

I am his.

Even in his



Absence, I

Revolve in my

Sheath of impossibles,



Priceless and quiet

Among these parrakeets, macaws!

O chatterers



Attendants of the eyelash!

I shall unloose

One feather, like the peacock.



Attendants of the lip!

I shall unloose

One note



Shattering

The chandelier

Of air that all day flies



Its crystals

A million ignorants.

Attendants!



Attendants!

And at his next step

I shall unloose



I shall unloose --

From the small jeweled

Doll he guards like a heart --



The lioness,

The shriek in the bath,

The cloak of holes.

.: Purdah :.

The word 'Purdah' means a 'curtain' or 'screen'.
The 'purdah system' is practiced especially by keeping women in seclusion.
The poem is about 'oppression'.
The 'mirror' symbolizes the fact that in order to be a 'part of the society', one has to be like the rest.
"At this facet the bridegroom arrives
Lord of the mirrors!" >The bridegroom is also like everyone else...
People who are different are oppressed by the society.



| Posted on 2007-03-25 | by a guest