WHAT KEEPS THE CHAITRA* KOEL BACK?
The Chaitra koel's routine visit to the
Lone mango tree in the compound
Of a lonelier house,
Where life rests in a shadow of silence,
Is delayed this time.
Has it forgotten the tree
That stands shrunken, pale
And waits patiently to gather
The silk whisper of spring colours
In its brittle arms and
Coax music out of it?
*
What is keeping the bird back,
The tree wonders.
And the answer comes in
A startling cacophony
That loops and rolls in angry surges
Across the neighbouring vacant lot
Where the mid-spring sun slants ,
Warm and oily, on the
Massive drilling rigs,
Excavators, concrete mixers,
Behemoths from some alien world
Filling the empty hours
With too much life,
Hurling ugly sermons of urbanity
At its placid apathy.
The clangs, the clatters and the grinding;
Stones gritting, metals rattling,
Smell of smouldering tobacco and toxicity
Hang over the mounds of red earth
Like a crumpled canopy
Of noisy ash.
Will the koel return to the Chaitra tree
With its gentle silky lilts
Drowning the tumults,
The tree wonders, but waits
Shaking dust and doubt
Off its welcoming fragrant boughs
Throbbing, trembling in the
heavy vibrating breeze
And gathering itself back
Steadfast in its hope and trust.
*Chaitra: March
Snehaprava Das is an academic, translator and writer. She has multiple translations, three collections of stories and five anthologies of poetry to her credit. She has been published in Indian Literature, Oxford University Press, Speaking Tiger, Penguin and Black Eagle Books.
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