By Dr Rumpa Das
Love 2020
Nowadays,
I don’t go anywhere near where you live –
Spring is elsewhere.
The flowers in your garden have wilted,
Creepers seek out fresh pastures,
They want to live and foster
Away from the putrefying aura
Your late love spreads.
My hesitant plant-heart
Fearful of renewed assault,
However, has shown grit.
Out of heaps of deep damp memories
It has blossomed forth
Into confident young greenery.
Fresh wafts of breeze blow
In my mind, and show —
How old love and betrayal
Can be great fodder for a brave new life.
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Love beyond 2020
So you love me?
Just as the blue-green hillside
Loves the northern breeze
That smells of wild lilacs, rhododendrons
And the tales of throttled lives
Which rolled over the precipice?
So you love me –
Because once upon a time
Your arms entwined mine
In a tepid moist embrace?
In a room that smelled of wine, cologne and deceit,
Even as a thousand flowers blossomed
To consecrate our love,
And a thousand incense sticks burned themselves,
In solidarity with fruitless passion.
So, you love me still?
Even as I adjust a strand of unruly silver-grey hair
Behind my rimless glasses
And you look deep into
My eyes that smoked still
Of kohl , tears and long-lost promises.
Love isn’t love that alters, when it alteration finds.
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Dr Rumpa Das, an alumnus of Dept of English, Jadavpur University, is Principal, Maheshtala College, Kolkata. She has taught English for over two decades. She was former Deputy Secretary (Academic) at the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education. She has published widely in India & abroad, and spoken in more than thirty international, national & state-level seminars and conferences. Her areas of interest are Gender, Media and Culture Studies. She is a poet, creative writer and a reviewer.
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