Teesta Review: A Journal of Poetry, Volume 5, Number 1. May 2022. ISSN: 2581-7094
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| Image courtesy: en.wikipedia.org |
1.
Copper Cropper
My dear Barby Smith,
You let
yourself be heard alright –
Your
monotones of perseverance,
Your regular
rattle,
Your
clucking cacophony.
One expects
to stop one’s ears,
Only to end
up keeping time.
Still,
couldn’t you be a little coyer
With your
decoy?
A little
kinder to my ear?
Like the
oriole’s oily cajole
With its
upward curls of hope?
Better still,
couldn’t you be a little unkinder?
The treepie’s
sawing crackle,
Goes
chop-chop on my nerves,
And my
desire to see any further.
While you,
neither coy nor gruff,
Keep me ever
tethered to false hopes.
Some ruse to
whet the hunger in my eyes?
Why, should
you then grind it all away?
Alas! The
ground is all I have,
While I stare after you on high!
(5/6
November 2021)
The
kingfisher has a trinity of calls:
The sitting
call, forsaken, forlorn,
Like the ghughu’s, only not so faint:
For the ghughu hums within our earshot,
In and
around our homely nooks,
Too common
to home our common kingfisher.
Next the
flying call, freakish, frantic,
Like the
parrot’s – only scruffier, scraggier;
For the
parrot impales sparser airs,
Far from the
lowly lively waters
That commonly home our common kingfisher.
Then at last
the calling call, frilly, Aprilly,
Like the
woodpecker’s scrape, only less billy, less steely,
For drilling waters calls for softer skills.
(14 January 2022)
3.
Vox oriolis
The oriole
is such an orator,
Consummate
conservator,
Smooth operator
Of that box
of magic tricks:
Its voice versatile.
I was
determined to disregard
The arboreal
notices.
Spring is
such a nuisance,
Enemy of
urgent business.
The
breeze-filled leaves
Make for the
manageably ambient.
As for the
vocaholic barbet
And the
metallic treepie,
Frankly, my dears, I don't give an ear.
And then
came that Roman elocutor,
That spoiler
of a people-pleaser,
Determined
to conquer
With its laryngeal demagoguery.
And I
turned.
And as I
turned, it changed its tack
To a tapering
tape, a notification:
I came. I called. My calling is done.
(16 February 2022)
4.
Metempsychosis
The mystery
doesn’t die.
The mystique
simply moves,
Tiptoeing
through the dunes
Traced by
sightless sound,
Oriole
earlier, barbet before,
Now another
nameless tease.
Avatars,
avian, of my thirsty ears,
That crumble
and melt with
The tædium of seeing.
(19 February 2022)
5.
No Time to Die
When trees
are cut down,
Where do
birds feel the blow?
Which part
of their body?
The feet unperched?
The neck
craning?
The belly’s
pit?
Where does
that sinking feeling hit?
They won’t stop to tell.
Nor must I,
As I fly
from
Each
stratosphere of sorrow
To another.
(11 March 2022)
6.
Language
I saw a
pigeon drop dead.
It fell like
a bowling pin,
A straight,
stiff tilt and down ...
Out of
sight.
I had seen
it first
A minute or
two earlier,
A young,
lithe, grey-white cheery,
Perching on
the transformer ledge.
It would
have flown off,
But trust me
to turn good Samaritan!
It caught my
gaze,
Trying to
read my hand’s motion.
So much for
caution.
How was it
to know
An
invitation from admonition?
One of
scores of pigeons,
Starved of
grain and attention,
It bowed its
head ever so little,
And oh! What an electric end!
(19 March 2022)
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