Teesta Review: A Journal of Poetry, Volume 4, Number 2. November 2021. ISSN: 2581-7094
To my Muse who left me
at the Delhi airport
--- Amrita Sharma
Hai na?
I feel I have come too
far from you,
To the place you guided
me to,
Your voice left me when
I left the country,
Since then I have been
craving to hear you.
Come, let’s try the old game
once again,
Again after answering
the same old questions,
Yet again visiting the
Universal Book Store,
For I know it would have
a new stock of the already read pages.
Come, won’t you talk
again while taking that night walk,
Where one can hear the
dogs barking from your neighbor’s home,
I know the baby won’t
return,
I perhaps remember him
as a Dove now.
Come, for you wanted to
live alone,
As you had turned tired
of staring at the Ayurvedic drugs,
As those bottles
threatened you of prolonged quarantines.
Come, for I know you
know what I think,
And I know you know that
I have always known,
As we started and ended
each time with the same question,
Hai na?
We can do it all over
again,
Until we find another
question,
Come, let’s try the old
game once again.
Every single poem I
wrote was meant for you,
Every thought began and
ended with you,
I have been struggling
to find words these days,
Come, for I wish to
write once again for you.
*Hai na?- A Hindi phrase
that translates as “Isn’t it so?
*Ayurvedic- Belonging to
Ayurveda, the ancient Hindu system of medicine