Apsara

 

How much have you travelled, I wonder

The last I saw you,

You were at Ajanta,

From the cave top, your heavenly view

 

Those eyes, those curious eyes

Of course I couldn’t forget,

Years had passed by

Until we again met

 

Faraway, this time –

Far from home, you and me

In a French museum, holding Champa’s heart

But you dancing in your liberty

 

Celestial, they say

That’s what you are,

Apsaras of space – and time, I would add

Beauty eternal, in every star

 

Yet, on your time in little Earth

I must admit, deep in my heart

You have come a long way – far indeed

Your footsteps - a trail of hidden art

 

On the Golden Road that spread from home

Your gaze has travelled to distant lands

Those eyes, necklace, dress of head

Those gracely sways of timeless hands

 

I know not when next we will meet

In some hidden jungle or a cave?

Or maybe in a museum housed

Of whatever it is that time could save

 

But I hope to tread more on that Road

Or whatever’s left still today

Ruins, shards of empires broke

Some more of you that waits the way

 

There will be will to meet again

In so many lands left to know –

Bagan, Ayutthaya, Borobudur?

Lands you conquered long ago…

 

1^st Feb’ 2024

 

Dedicated to the mesmerising painting of an Apsara in the Ajanta Caves – and the same celestial being’s statue I saw in Danang from the ancient kingdom of Champa in Vietnam years later. This dancing figure of an apsara has become one of the most popular images of Cham art surviving in modern times.