Bharata & the Deer – a poem by Charlotte Couse

Bharata & the Deer


In my last life I was a politician — a good one —
they named a city after me — its streets swept
& beggarless — even the stray dogs’ fur shone —
but I walked away from everything —
homes hung with Mughal silks
the laugher of children in sunlit courtyards
my wife’s body — warm from dreams at dawn.

I cast off my clothing like old lives
& sat by the river Chakra — its waters 
washing over shaligrams — ammonites
sacred to Vishnu, tightly coiled snakes
in centuries-deep sleep — & I meditated 
till my mind was a shoreless sea —
thoughts darting away like silver fish. 

But prarabdha karma had yet to fruit 
& I was wrenched from bliss —
a doe damp from a lion’s breath 
lept over the river & died beside me 
& out from under her a living fawn —
I’d never seen anything so vulnerable —
wet leaf-mulch eyes looking up at me. 

I fed him milk & later grass from my hand
& we walked in the forest & when he tired
I carried his fine bones on my shoulders
& I when I slept, he curled up by my flank —
soothing my sleep with his pulse —
& when I meditated I saw him —
nose black & wet as a shaligram. 

When death came, it was a storm
& my last thought was of my deer, 
shaking in the rain, so I was born a deer — 
but a jatismara remembering past lives — 
so I skitter through the mustard field 
to the banks of the Gandaki where the rishis are
to drink the water rippling with their wisdom.

Charlotte Couse lives in Wareham, on the south-west coast of the UK. She has an MA in Creative Writing from Southampton University and works as an acupuncturist and practitioner of Chinese herbal medicine.