Samyukta

ON WET GRASS That footprint on the wet grass need not be death’s; perhaps a folksong had gone by. The butterfly quivering on your palm has something to tell you. How long had the mangoes and jasmines awaited your hands…

FIRST DRAFT It’s just old fashioned, they say, to use pen and paper for first drafts but I still need the early shiver of ink in a white February wind — the blue slope and curve of letter bursting into…

In January 2000, at the start of the new millennium, my mother grew a yellow hibiscus. When she first showed it to me, luminous, almost phosphorescent, on that dark, winter evening, I saw it, rather predictably, as a symbol both…

I would never wish to be a shadow of myself, A speck of a ghost flickering across The lower chin of the sun. Call that beauty spot- Barely visible to the naked eye, Indistinguishable from other dots Dissolving in the…

On the threshold of the house we never built, I waited for you. In your ever-growing journeys I was the attendant you never noticed. My prayer had left its dwelling place and it followed wherever you flew, our child in…

Like delicate tracery you mapped the delusions of my heart, planning the evening and the rain, it was revenge, and I did not know, not recognising your art. We speak of rebirth, the cycle of life and death. But words…

As if an earthquake Always happens elsewhere; As if the pond here Will forever be still And as if the lotuses with their mouths open will forever gape at the skies. What if I wake up To see the skies…