Title: A Verdant Heart
Author: Prithvijeet Sinha
Publisher: Bookleaf Publishing
AN EVENING
(In the Countryside)
The dusk
has run away
from dark orphanages.
Families of 'saal'
cover the forest
with abundance
just like the river's
bouyant currents
guide the Grand Boat
ahead.
The last blossoms
of warm sunlight
emerge from among
those trees
and now
circumambulate
the farmlands.
***
Oh
medicine-takers!
Come here!
The winds are not fidgety here.
Greet them unhesitantly.
***
Gather around here.
The tasteful smell
of curries coming
from the maternal homestead
has turned this evening
into a dominion
of delectable flavours.
Tell sleep
to resist.
On your feathery shirt
hung on the clothesline,
something intangible occurs.
Watch
how the moonlight
sews its torn parts.
Those particles
filled with voluminous light
will now dispatch
a night's worth of beauty
for the days to come.
YAARA*
As the alumni sneer,
we revisit
the green
mausoleum
for the second time
today.
A pup
on our trail,
giving curls
of sound
and rearing
his curiosity
at the edge of our
hips.
He has no
problem with
making new friends.
He isn't born of scandal
or frenzy.
Which is why
he sits like a monk
and watches us
place
a ring of
flowers
on the mausoleum's
palms.
***
Somebody loved
the one
who came
with the sun.
Someone too
put flowers
in the name
of a beloved
here.
Someone
once
let another
little pup
from this bygone land
trail them
because he
understood
the meaning of love.
Today,
it's what we
understand.
The little pup
sits at the mausoleum's gate
and
shakes his tail.
We call him
Yaara.
Our day
starts here.
*Yaara means friend in colloquial Hindi
I'VE GIVEN PEACE A CHANCE
The vast interiors of
my beloved cat's eyes,
yellow and green
the soundwaves of her
love song
and the primary softness
of her body
beget
time,
stilled to a superior
attachment to the little hours
where she adjusts
her gaze
with an unaccustomed
earth.
The chances of her surviving this world
are greater
on an everyday basis.
The holdovers
of rage and diffidence
are like indistinct clouds
that pass in the sky
before her wide eyes.
I had never known
such stillness
in my life.
I had never known
the comfort
and balance
of a creature
who lets
indivisible days
and the lazy
minutes after two o'clock
become like marmalade
spread out in an
open jar,
liable to be tasted
and profoundly savoured.
***
I've given peace a chance
without accusing myself
of being distanced from her.
She now guides me to sleep,
placing her paws on my chest
and breathing with me.
Because of her,
an unaccustomed earth
has finally begun to
share its mysteries
of comfort, rest
and acceptance
with me.
BRANCHES
The branches were taut as an arrow
or directly ploughing the air with arms shaped like pitchforks.
They could never envision
the violence of our world.
In a farm next to this foliage
tailored by someone with superb skills,
bearing a village's heartland and the phonetics of air,
were a farmer and his cows.
They were singing, without
words,
the last notes
of an agrarian song.
***
No animals rustled.
But three teenage lads
took care at this time
of the evening.
They asked me my name.
One of them
gave me a good smile.
He was the countryside's
rising sun.
He said the river
was just an ordinary string of water now.
The call for prayer came
when he put his arms
around his friends' shoulders.
Shoulder to shoulder
they walked
but the river didn't end.
Similarly,
that evening of amity
and fulfillment
didn't end for them.
All evenings
are theirs
for this devotion
to each other.
The branches sway.
Moths dance
unabashedly around them
and little mosquitoes hum like theremins.
Long may this countryside live
with them
and the three lads.
About the Book: A Verdant Heart is a collection of soul-songs that captures Nature in its full diversity of expressions and experiences, tilting its omnipotence on diurnal human lives. It is a labour of love and a poignant reflection on the poetic lens that allows mortal beings the freedom to observe and commit to creativity.
About the Author: Prithvijeet Sinha, a resident of the cultural epicenter that is Lucknow, India. His prolific published credits encompass poetry, musings on the city, cinema, anthologies, journals with national and international repertoires as well as a blog ( https://anawadhboyspanorama.wordpress.com/). His life-force resides in writing, in the art of self-expression.
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