Shanta Acharya
The Three Sisters
She sits janus-faced, identical twins,
posing for her portrait. This is Present,
phoenix-like she perishes and is born again.
You cannot tell her schizophrenic selves apart.
This female Gemini, caught between
Future and Past, jealously guards the
umbilical corridor connecting women.
Looking through a magical arrangement
of mirrors and reflections, creating life and images
in the prism-womb of time and space,
she wears spectacles for her two human eyes -
the darkened past, a tinted future; the third eye
reserved for the present, the composite angle of vision.
Future is the fairest of the three -
beckoning us to new horizons, promising things.
Past is enchanting too, transforming herself
when viewed through the chameleon looking glass
of the mind that turns things inside out, upside down
with intuition sharpened with experience.
Past greets the arrival of Present and Future
mixing them up like pieces in a kaleidoscope,
refracting memories and experiences selectively
through magical glasses. The three sisters dance,
chant and fly like three witches casting a spell.
There is no escape from the tyranny of their presence
as they hypnotise each other along with the onlookers.
Page(s) 76
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