Poetry Editor ANANYA S GUHA's note:
In these poems there is an intermingling of both the abstract and the concrete making them very powerful. Her images are clearly etched and vivified in such a manner so as to arouse reader's empathy. Lyricism is also a mark quality in her poems. These poems bring out some of the best in her poetry: stark, real and lyrical.
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Embroidery
You have to learn
to uncrease the wrinkles
with the tightness of a hoop.
Use a circle of wood and a screw
to pull taut a moon of cloth.
Choose carefully
the needle, the skeins, the pattern.
Squint eye to eye and thread thin
silk. Designing fingers will arrest
an instant: a lazy daisy nest, a running
bird, herringbone leaves, feathered curlicues
closed with French flowers.
Craft a silence balanced by the stab
of needle, the clink
against thimble.
Knot with care
when you’re done.
The underside
(the flight of thread
the net
of loops and jumps)
will never be seen.
The precision
never undone.
***
When a man kisses a tree
Something shifts.
The grass leans closer.
The June dust hides
much. An ache for tree bark
fractured like the soles of his mother’s feet
perhaps. Or a beloved
wooden and impenitent. A rehearsal
of the evening’s foreplay. Perhaps.
Or just the touch
of a man’s lips
soft and open
against a tree’s grief.
Perhaps
this last.
***
Thukje Chueling Nunnery, Tawang
Every morning I feed you
pieces of my past, O Buddha
Every morning I scatter
my feathers around you, O Buddha
Every morning my fingers
fly over listening wheat, O Buddha
Every morning I dress you
with calloused eyes, O Buddha
Every morning the cold turns
me into firewood, O Buddha
Every morning the mountains
remind me of stains, O Buddha
Every morning the leaf-smoke greys
into lovesong, O Buddha
Every morning the stars seem closer
to your mouth, O Buddha
Every morning my frown
torches the sky, O Buddha
Every morning I fold deeper
into my flesh, O Buddha
Every morning the stones walk
by a fever, O Buddha
Every morning my hunger
edges toward you, O Buddha
***
How to pluck a gulbakshi
Consider it blindfolded.
Judge its magenta
as sharp as breath.
Take into account a runic aftertaste.
Weigh the fragility of smell,
eroded so easily.
Believe in violent fingers,
fervent and crumpling.
Study
its turncoat variability.
Bear in mind the lightness of feet.
Reflect on the trumpet
display, the frail charm.
Think about narratives
hidden in stamens.
Watch it as it swoons.
The clock ticks. Four o’ clock,
five o’ clock, six. Watch it crinkling.
Quick, pluck it. Crush it
and consider it again
in the mark of pink hands.
***
Map of India
My Geography teacher
always asked me to chalk it
on the board. It was easy.
A floppy-haired head, two
arms spread and feet pressed
coyly together in the waters.
A woman pirouetting.
One hand holding
a veil in the wind.
This is the map children
still draw. The formal,
fictional map. The other map, the
un-schooled one shows she
has trimmed her hair a bit and is slowly
letting go of her veil.
