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Writer's pictureBasudhara Roy

Resolving

a poem by Basudhara Roy

 

To talk less.

To not crave conversations

in the heart of things.

To stop reading words

as if they were newspapers, happenings,

prescriptions, passports, prophecies,

manuscripts, maps, destinies.


To stop holding words to the sun

to see if they let brilliance in or

shun it, shutting windows,

chimneys, doors, keyholes.


To not cull words as if

they were rare shells by the shore.

To not lift their veils of sand

to listen to the commotion

within their breasts of the restless sea

and the wet fragrance of fondling breeze.


To not bend to pick out of curiosity words,

smooth as pebbles, half-concealed across

some path. Cool to the touch, inviting,

reminiscent of water, of pacified thirst,

amid heat waves pausing to sigh, to sing.


To not long for words as stars,

moons, dreams.

To not feed on their wonder or

bathe in their streams

as weary, intoxicated wanderers do.


Unable, however, to fall out of love,

I will do as the thrifty housekeeper does.

Dust the words I like and put them away

for another season, another day,

when time runs easier;


when chores sit lighter;

when the children have all left

to draw new constellations

on the borders of the world,

charcoal in hands, their crayons at home

abandoned, ineffectual.


And when leisure entices like a hymn

an incantation whose promise persuades

to call up again, if only for a sign

all those hallowed ghosts, adieued, lost in time.


- from Moon in My Teacup (Kolkata: Writers Workshop, 2019)

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