Maya Devika

The evenings came slowly by the water,
With soft winds and the smell of rain,
The world felt young in those silent hours,
And so did we… Maya Devika and I.

There are evenings that do not pass.
They remain… like light caught in still water.

She walked where the narrow bund curved,
Between the whispering palms and the lake,
Her anklets speaking in soft silver notes,
Like thoughts the dusk had almost forgotten.

I do not remember when love began.
Perhaps it was always there,
Like the river beneath the surface,
Flowing quietly, unseen, and sure.

Some loves do not arrive.
They reveal themselves… slowly, like dawn.

Her laughter would touch the water lightly,
And spread in circles that trembled and faded,
And I would stand there, watching,
As if time itself had paused to listen.

On certain nights, she would look at me,
A long, silent, knowing look,
As though she stood somewhere I could not reach,
And I… had not yet learned how to follow.

The moon would rise behind the coconut leaves,
Laying pale light upon her face,
And a strange, quiet fear would bloom in me,
Like a flower that opens only in darkness.

The heart knows.
Long before words… long before farewell.

Then came the days that made no sound.
They entered like shadows into closed rooms,
A silent sickness moving without footsteps,
Breathing where laughter once lived.

My Maya Devika began to fade,
Like a lamp that trembles before it forgets its flame,
Like a song that loses its last note mid-air,
Leaving the heart suspended… unfinished.

Loss does not break the world at once.
It loosens it… thread by thread.

They took her away from my waiting hands,
To a place where even names were not spoken,
Where love stood outside like a stranger,
And prayers returned without answers.

I called her,
But my voice fell back into me.

There are distances no road can cross.
Not even love can arrive in time.

And then,
She was gone.

And I have often felt, in the sleepless dark,
That the heavens were not untouched by this,
That even the angels, in their distant calm,
Grew restless at a love like ours.

For joy, when it shines too purely on earth,
often disturbs the quiet of the skies.

And so they sent that unseen breath among us,
That silent sickness none could name at first,
To loosen the hands that held too tightly,
And take my Maya Devika away from me.

Not like a storm,
Not like a cry,
But like mist leaving the morning river,
Without sound… without farewell.

They brought her back in a silence too heavy,
Past waters that would not move,
Past trees that stood like silent witnesses,
And laid her where even time walks softly.

Death does not take love away.
It only hides it… where the eyes cannot follow.

But our love was not made of breath or days.
It was deeper than the dark backwaters at night,
Where no oar has touched the bottom,
And no light has ever stayed.

No sky above, no earth below,
No unseen hand of fate,
Can ever loosen the quiet bond
That holds my soul to hers.

What the heart has truly held
never leaves,
It only changes its place.

The moon still comes to me at night,
Carrying her face in its pale silence,
And the stars… those distant watchers,
Still hold the light of her eyes.

Memory is where love learns to live again.

And so, when the world grows thin and still,
I walk to the edge of the breathing water,
And lie beside the silence that speaks her name,

My darling…
my life…
my unending echo,
Maya Devika…

In the long, listening night,
By the waters that never forget.