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)