Teesta Review: A Journal of Poetry, Volume 5, Number 1. May 2022. ISSN: 2581-7094
Sparrow
Seeds, and two other poems
 |
| Image courtesy: indiatvnews.com |
1.
Sparrow Seeds
It is a mirage,
A bird mirage.
My eyes almost pop out
And glued to the windshield.
Is it really you?
It’s
decades since we last met…
I am on my way to the old mill,
The dilapidated bungalow of my ancestors –
A broken heritage or perhaps an unwanted
relic.
Where paddy was stored by the ton
And where you made home,
You
twittered nonstop and fought annoyingly.
Truly, it wasn’t a fight after all.
A teasing of sorts:
Between mates, between siblings, between
families…
Writing poesies, feeding fledglings…
Shifting from one crevice to another…
Gulping water from the earthen birdbath…
Sand-play, water-play, paddy-play…
There
were only commas and no full stops.
My siblings, my cousins and me
Almost always behind their tails,
Shattering verses, contorting tunes and
Scattering words like inferior grains of
paddy.
You were weary of listening to our
guttural notes,
And hullabaloo,
But never intervened.
We rolled in laughter at your belittling
sizes
Insignificant
cacophony and irrelevant metaphors.
That was yesteryear – when the mill was
robust.
Now – the mill is old;
I live in a faraway land,
I sustain on processed foods,
I have no time for symphonies,
I rely on technology – my mind food.
I
am on my way to demolish the structure.
There!
There, I see the mirage,
In the middle of the road –
He/she/both are dipping their beaks
In the imaginary waters.
They appeared brown and sullen,
Featherless and lean,
Dipping
deep into the pool of muddy water…
I miss them all – their chatter,
Their
play, their mirth, their love!
I wish we had sparrow seeds.
I could have lain them on my way to the
mill,
On the hill, on the plains,
On the plateau, on the ghats,
In my home, in my garden,
On my desk, in my pen.
And they’d rise from the seed
I wish it isn’t just a mirage…
2.
The Rhinoceros Sutra
You were an epitome,
Are an epitome,
Will be an epitome forever –
An epitome of asceticism,
Trailing
enlightenment in the wilderness.
I am a mere mortal,
Searching for solitariness in social mores.
You wandered all your life seeking the
truth –
The Solitary Buddha!
Stringing sutras and thrumming eremitism,
A Pratyeka-Buddha – merging with the
divine.
No wonder you were a motif on the Pashupati
seal,
On terracotta figurines, on coins,
In
the hearts of ancient civilizations.
You roam around in the wild, around me,
Your parikrama, your desire is not
unfulfilled.
I was unaware of your asceticism.
While you focused on the monastic life,
I waited for the fading moon,
Erasing
your smells and fragrances.
My verselets perch on your one horn,
On poached meat and medicine,
Reflecting misty images of thawing jungles
and leas.
My heart crammed with malice,
Of growth and development.
You are not part of my story…
Will I be ever forgiven?
3.
Vulture-ism
Altitude: it’s upward like Kanchenjunga
Muse measured in miles.
When I regress, I find –
Motifs and memories,
Of loftiness attained, of sovereignties,
of domains,
Of
yellows and violets…
Vision: it’s enormous like the Mediterranean
Cantos, epics, long narratives in meters.
I can recall –
Images larger than life.
I step on verdant glories,
Of
emerald destinies…
Fearlessness: it’s indomitable like Spirit
Yeah, I’d prefer calling myself that.
When seas roared, storms raged, volcanoes
erupted
I inked serifs of my purple valor,
My
conquests, my goalpost…
Tenacity: it’s unyielding like Avalanches
Gauged by the dimensions of the skies,
Unbending to ruins and rues.
I hopped from one stanza to another
From odes to analogies, to anecdotes valiantly…
Vitality: it’s dynamism like the old neem
in my backyard
Is there a way to quantify my oomph?
The umami of claiming all territory,
My land, my rules,
Mine, mine and mine.
I am the superlative, the prefix, the
suffix,
The real and the surreal.
Penning prose, poesy and drama,
The
wonders of the planet…
Not once did it occur
You are nature’s scavenging crew.
I haven’t learnt a thing from you;
Instead
killed you – through toxic carrions.
Today, I reminisce
Newton’s third law:
Every action has an equal and opposite
reaction!
----::----