a tryst with an afternoon of spring.

Had I not in such love been
Of thy beauty, Queen of Spring,
The afternoon would not have carried
Such corns and grains in sheaf,
Golden as left on the field
and lustrous like Proserpine,

I find You as Core
of Beauty everlasting
and also as a cause of poetic out pour,
as I hear thy indulgent swing
Making cuckoos to sing
Merrily with spontaneous ease,
Making the afternoon so sleepy,
Turning slow the movement of shadow
of trees on ponds so lively, green,

I find thy rustling wave conversing
with leaves of varied colors, mild and striking,
I smell pollens in the air,
those tiny floating particles yellow,
like adornment to Your flowing hair,
I succumb to thy lazy haze sweet
which has always made birds to chirp and tweet,

And from winter I tread towards
a season of generation and honeycombs.

You I knew then would have arrived...

Anticipating thy love extraordinary
stopped under that lemon tree,
little greenish white blossoms
where like dots of intoxicating smell
kept me standing every spring of my life, felled,

a few yards away the huts of the village folk
had shed light dim opening a sequence of a country scene,
somewhere a radio had a muffled broadcast
of songs of phalgun and mango buds,

You, I knew then
Would have arrived,
through my Circle of Life.

little beads

We took a seat, side by side,
you, me and a starry night,

and poetry came silent,unhurried,
with jingling bells tied loose to her feet,

and
      words
                 fell
                        upon
                                  us,
        like
             little
                  beads
                         luminous,

And we like children be-mused ran,
to catch them showering on our lands.

 

Hidden (Aral)

At this hour of night,
when the avenues had gone off to sleep, outright,
Those trees and birds, that yellow colored apartment,
outhouses-all when to the kingdom of sleep went,
from my writings were flowing away to you
waters forests mounds, railgates,courts,bazaars, school, verandah,
flowing away from me they all,
those talks of seas, bushes, shrubs,
flowing away to you they all,
those songs of roads, quiet sips from tea cups,
and that sadness which only grips one leaving the town;

now I am hiding away myself;
now I am breaking down on the last line;
now I can not simply stop and keep hidden
another breaking dawn,
now that morn is going to you,
to your sleepy window
with light in her hands.

(it is a transliteration of a poem titled " Aral", by Nibedita Acharya.)

I have been living...

I have been living
As lives a dream all through,
I have been singing
As sings a poem for You,
I have been writing
As writes a cloudy indolent day,
I have been painting
All that can a drizzle possibly say,

I have been walking
Down the known unknown streets,
I have been cycling up
Where songs my feelings meet,
I have been riding
Wonders of a tattooed mind,
I have been watching
Clouds sailing where they wings always find,

I have been hoping
To gather the moisture of air,
I have been smelling
Springfield's tuneful care,
I have been swinging
As swing and tremble freshened leaves,
I have been flowing
As flows the wet happy breeze.

When I love You...

When I love You
You become the creator
And I too,
And we stand up to stop
Bombs that on Syria drop,
And molotov cocktails
We drink them bellyful
To defuse them without fail,

When I love You
I become the annihilator
And You too,
And we stand up to erase
Fears and tears from aggrieved days
And hot lead of molten bullets
We put into our hearths
And by them our rooms we decorate.

Bookish

When the air is so filled with songs,
And the flowers with scent of spring
When knowledge of civilisation bring,
I turn to streets walked by my past,
Where in books old covered with dust,
Memories stay so beautifully written,
Memories of finding her, Eidyia of my heart,
How she took me to go hunting for words,
From Lotos eaters to Dubliners,
How in silence of library, like a church,
For the scripts and slokas,  I made a search,
How through pigeon holes on the wall,
Sun rays on hands and paper slanted, did fall,
And how the aroma of books, napthalene balls,
Filled the rooms of our hearts that Spring, a windfall...

I walk through those streets unscrolled,
Calligraphic letters where reveal stories untold,
The coffee shop at the corner, a century  old,
There still I find derelict, motheaten, cold,
There I remember by writings on the wall
Youths with fire in heart how added numbers to the toll,
There I recollect, surprised and dismayed
How the city had grown from her days bullet ridden, frayed,

From fratricide, I move on,
To the passages, alleys, where literature
Boldly propagation of humanity declares,
And Eidyia, there I discover, again,
From Oceanus and Tethys, risen.

How like Eos,

How like Eos,
Thou arrive riding Phaeton and Lampus,
Draped in fleecy clouds,
Hastening across the streams of Oceanus,
Blinding me to see
Amidst the bright, Horae,
Thy feminine hours
Climbing the arc of heaven,
And at that moment
I can only sing thee,
For thou hath made me,
Like a creator,
Like a damsel who brings light to the mortal,

A candle I turn then,
To worship thee,
As by thy glory
Thou light me,

How like Eos
Thou bring dews of the morn,
O, the daughter of Hyperion,
How by thy rise
Thou create words in me that fly.

Would leave a few poems as buds,

Would leave a few poems mine
As buds in your sky to shine,
And with your flower basket
You would there arrive, sacred,
To pick them up, one by one,
And you would then put them there,
Singing a song perhaps to fill the air,
Which song would you then sing,
I have that sense preordained, I think,

Your song would be full of Love,
Which could only be borne by wings of dove,

And hearing your songs so blissful,
My poems from buds would bloom colorful.

Come, winter's heather,

Come winter's heather,
Like Erica,
And by thy feather
Let me be blown...

With thy breeze in my sail,

With thy breeze, freed, onto my sail,
Broken, felled, the string,
Ready am I,
Sinking I wail,as I sing,

The morn has gone futile,
The afternoon trails by a few miles,
Tie me not there
Whence the shore is so near,

For thou the boatman,
Woken, I spend the time of sands,
Waves of the sea,
Whence play with me;

I will befriend the storm,
Will not be by frowns torn,
Leave me there,
In the face of the gale,

For thou the boatman,
For thou, I sail.

(It is a transliteration of a song by Rabindranath Tagore, done by me. My humble tribute to the greatest poet and writer of our land. The original bengali song can be found at pg 404, no. 24, Collected works,  Birth centenary edition, )

S1

'I think I am just like her...'
That way she started to jabber,
I knew whom did she refer...
In S1, we both had seen her,
Her hair which flew in the wind,
Her face happy and sad,
Her talks going round and round
Reaching nowhere yet right there,
Where,Stanislavski  recast Shakespeare,

'My bounty is as boundless as the sea,
My love as deep; the more I give to thee,
The more I have, for both are infinite'
She did heave a sigh, seeped in, heartful a tone,
With the play opening lines by the passing light,
Stanislavski as would have wished,

And I had traveled thousand acres of green,
And few hundred miles
To find the smile
Of a blossom,
That bloomed  true,
Raised by the time's hue,

'I think I am just like her...'
She repeated with assertion,
And a theatre broke,

The streets looked like taken out
From the setting,
Lighted dim,
A bit in a haze,
With purple feet
Hurrying to meet
Big roads.

Just before dusk,

Just before dusk,
The sky tells upon a bay,
With te deum laudamus
Singing the passage of a day...

An ode to Lofn,

To what shall I liken thee Lofn?
Thy cold breeze lighted and softened
That sends the air to run
Cooling hearths, an unusual turn
Of thy way to spread winter's song
To what shall I liken thee, Lofn,
As thou take and pull me along
To the land of Edda, albeit norse
As thou cause a winter to hold up, stilled, a pause,
Like a Fiore, overwhelming the canvas wide
With colors of his beateous mind  laid up alright,
Like a mariner upon arrival at a place
Hearing the murmur of Lethe, a bless,
Like a man yet to make out
What can cause lotos petals to sprout
Lines in a heart like offshoots
Of too much poetic a root,
To what shall I liken thee, Lofn,
Thy cold breeze lighted and softened
Whence sings winter's song warm.

On 'the corn field' *

The corn field
Flooded by yellowish gold
Had the whispering breeze to play with,
And a lad, a ploughman's son,
There how with his plough homeward did tread,
His strawhat, slanted down,
Could not stop the sun to greet-
Him, swayed by the picturesque treat
Of the cornfield, bearing the dreams of his toils,
By  the light of fading day so beautifully lit.

(Note: * a painting by Berthe Morisot, the american impressionist painter,)

And like smoke of incense, a misty morn,

And like smoke of incense
With cold breeze's breath
The morn arrives misty dense,
Filling the heart's field with poetic sense,

And imagery of life,
Like a landscape draped in fog,
Curtained by a screen translucent,white,
Drops from angel's hands,
To sing the songs of soul,
Iike a holy rite.

Upon receipt of a painting,

A painting have I received
From someone who had the time passed by sleeves,
Who had spent a large part of days under the open sky, and the Sun,
Who had made a tryst with Nature all through,
Who had lived life, in farms and barns,
And in meadows, in lands of plateaus and hills,
In places where the days, the songs of heaven seal-
With mellifluous grace and wonderous accompaniment
Of rivers and brooks that to a heart can only melody send,

The  painting done at a location undisclosed
Filled my soul with a dreamy float,
The brushstrokes nimble and crafted with care,
brought alive a bower with sublimity layered,
And colors of country which the painter had caught
Left me struck, dumbed, and with poesy wrought.

A scene idyllic,

I think I have been to that place
So peaceful, pastoral,
Where by chirpings of birds
The afternoon to a twilight falls,

I think I have been to that place
Where Artemis the earth hath blessed,
And the flavour of roses and myrtles
Fill the air of the space...

I think I have been to that place
Where Erato descends sacred,
With a turtle dove at Her feet,
Sleeping quiet , noiseless.

Early wintry morn, a drizzle,

By hoofs making marks
On moist a bit benign an earth,
The mythical horse, known as Pegasus,
Caused fountains of poesy to erupt, once,

And fumigation from frankincense,
Much like Orphic hymns ancient
There on pages of heart happened, ageless,

Early wintry morn thus
With a cold mild drizzle made me fall,
And wet streets became a playground
For leaves of mine to run around.

Ajay...

Getting down from the car,
When first looked around, near and far,
The blue hills, the clouds,
The vegetation, the grassy mound,
I could not believe
I had been once around,
To the same place...
'It got so much changed!'
I exclaimed,

'Have you come here?
Earlier?'
Someone asked,
From that little hut,
The door was open,
At the verandah there were pots of flowers,
And there the owner
Of the voice stood, apparent,

'Yes...long time ago...'

'How many?'

'Hmm...twelve years, perhaps...
And then, there were no such huts,
No sights of habitation,
Only there were greenery around,
And a few tents...'
I reminiscenced,

'And?'

'And...there was someone...
A lad, who used to play guitar,
Late in the evening,
He would sing,
Bob Marley...
Where had he gone?'

Asked her,
Feeling alone
Not lonely though,
For blue hills and white clouds
Were still there,
Shining by the light of the day,
And not faraway,
Just behind the mound of grass,
The Memorial Rock,
Stood, silent,

'Ajay?
Are you talking of him?'

'Yes! Yes!
Ajay was his name...'
I nodded, excited,
'Where is he nowadays?'

'He had gone...'
She said,
And went indoors...

'Hey! Wait!
Where is Ajay?'

I asked again,
She did not answer immediate,
She stopped,
And turned her head,
Towards the memorial...

Behind the mound of grass,
It was there, venerable,

'You will find him there,
Inscribed...
Five years back,
He was shot at,
At the border,
Friendly fires...
That did him...'

She said,
Before she turned to the door,
Again,

'Who are you by the way?'
Asked her,

'Me?'
She smiled, vague,

'No one...
But,
I have his name,
Right here...'
She placed her left hand on her bosom,
Candid, bold,
Her nosetip,
It appeared reddened, cold,

The blue hills
Were getting covered
by clouds,
Or were they? Really?