Two poems in an anthology edited by Sanjeev Sethi.

Daisy

 

Bulbuls quill the dusk

to sweetened coils of fading light.

The Barbet’s hammering call

punches the sun in place a while longer.

Last night’s storm

tethers our eyes

to the play of the Northerlies.

Yellow autumn leaves

cling damply to wet roads

like scattered post-its.

And in the flattened grass

a wild, purple daisy

raises its head

chivvies in the breeze

speaks about all the alizarin green

pumiced to a barren brown.

All the birds silenced out of existence.

This lavender daisy. Here. Now.

Holding its ground.

 

 Lightness

a cumulus cloud

weighs one hundred elephants

and after it rains,

less than a flower;

the slightest puff of wind

can make it dance.

 

When you arrive,

be the rain

turn the heavy cloud of waiting

into a light puff

make raindrops

dance.

 

Let all that tethered me to darkness,

lie pooled at my feet in a puddle.

 

 

My poem Musings in Different Truths on 13th December 2022https://www.differenttruths.com/author/vinita-a/

Musings

1.

Between Chaukhambha and Nanda Devi,

grow the hardy stencils of a winter shrub -

flowers drooping with frost

thorns upright in resilience.

Happiness transient

Pain immovable.

2.

In the bower of pear blossoms,

birds chirp

delicately outlined

against the white, long-lashed flowers,

each bloom a morning in itself.

How will I ever leave this

and return to a dank, rubbery city?

3.

From the weatherbeaten mud track

we look up at the mountains;

its steadfast benevolence

a spine for all things fragile.

As we commence our climb

our footsteps wobble

on loose stones

Sage-like, the peaks

watch us like a thought.

4.

The last vulture

of my generation is gone.

Hooked ivory beak

three-metre wingspan

wing covert - gone.

Diclofenac poisoning.

The sun must be crazy

to pour light

on their carcasses.

5.

She’s crossed borders

flown over cracked partition-earth

drilled colours into calyxes.

In her light bag of bones

she carries more conviction

than all our heavy flesh,

putrid with divides.