Eclipse

By Smitha Sehgal

ECLIPSE

Sometimes I pencil an octave across
the sky, when it grows blue, I sense 
the sea burn and blisters on my skin. 
When I was younger, I used to wonder 
why seagulls in certain oceans had to 

sound like falcons toward the onset 
of autumn. I belong to that ocean where 
Odysseus returned to Ithaca slaying 
the lotophagi. Borne of thought, 
in the cast of Pallas, we could persuade 

Neptune without a disguise or Ravan 
without burning the island. Yet a woman
has to grow into a blood moon sometimes, 
grow an arc to leap across the tides. 
At one point she would cross the boundaries 

of Earth and eclipse the shadows lurking
around the horizon. On the last day 
of spring,  hyacinths grow by the lagoon of 
rancour in the promise of redemption. I wonder 
how the female dragonfly deals with the times

she feels the need to rise beyond the lake 
and go right into the moon’s cold breath. 
Frozen in her words, I wonder how the female
centipede meets with an earthquake, 
in deep meditation inside the hollow of the oak tree.

Smitha Sehgal is a legal professional in Govt of India CPSE and a bilingual poet who writes in English and Malayalam. Her poems have been featured in contemporary literary publications such as Usawa Literary Journal, EKL Review, Madras Courier, Ink Sweat & Tears and elsewhere. 

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