Poem 4 (6.1)

 

Teesta Review: A Journal of Poetry, Volume 6, Number 1. May 2023. ISSN: 2581-7094


Peace

---Gopal Lahiri

 

And I say again, for emphasis,

To no one but myself, since no one is

with me.

 

You know if you are there or everywhere,

It is all those red eyes,

If you can imagine, it is all those greed

that lead you down to abyss.

 

Accept the good life and be happy.

Accept too, each action, each spoken word

spoken with love and light brings congruence.

 

Imagine, you leaders speaking,

And don’t worry about what is power,

or what is plain truth or what is revenge,

 

And each right word brings peace and harmony.

 

 

Universe

---Gopal Lahiri  

It is the middle of summer-

There is a mad scramble to identify

some pattern in the white clouds.

 

I walk on the flower garden

Rose petals drop on the tiled roof,

 

Birds and bees are a simple binary in my village.

 

A sparrow disturbs a fallen leaf.

the leaf another,

till they are blown away by the wind.

 

A frog uplifts its grey skin near the pond

and thinking: something may come

 

I see the ant line, they carrying crumbs of soil

this way and that way,

 

They are ordinary, the common, the very own.

 

How humble their efforts

How tiny their strengths,

 

It’s a journey just beginning

and no darkness anywhere

 

Let us hope it will always be like this.

 

Each of us going in our own way

building a peaceful universe.


Simmering Inlet

---Gopal Lahiri  

 

For now, the world is still and clear-

just leave a little space,

the birds fly past uninterrupted, upwards

towards the mountain top,

I put my hands on paper yet the moments

losing their way after a few minutes

in my closed palms, etching blue butterflies.

 

Also, these hands I open

brimming with soft shadows to rinse

my eyes in the dusk,

these hands know who will not

sleep tonight and remind me again

where a face emerges, a deep

simmering inlet that brings amity.

 

 

Twilight

---Gopal Lahiri

 

And her eyes brim over with the thought

of twilight when on the other side

of the life a river is slowly sending

invite for sailing. Then in the depths

of sleep a big boatyard

linking us to the distant bridges,

to the land of tranquility,

for forty years we have been staying

together and only now

do I know that love flows

from my arteries to his and vice versa.



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