I think about my past
In how I wanted you
I burn on the inside
To get rid of you
The flames cease
My ashes come into view
Spelling your name

Hold me as I silently sob
Rob me of my loneliness
Caress my empty flesh
Mesh your heart with mine
Dine on the small of my back
Lack in love as I also do
Glue our pain together
Forever we grow cold

Time to take a break
Pause the rhyme
Shift the eyes to mountain's height
The mind to inner ravine

Take the eyes off the page
Put a stop to flowing ink
Give the mind the peace of sage
The eyes the soothe of green

Time friends to take a break
Pause play of words
Try to rewind and remake
Fragments of heart

But promise you
If all is well
I'll be back

Refreshed by new
Mountain's tale
Jungle's track

Here the pines blush
in the cloud's embrace
the sky comes low
falls for earth's face

the winds kiss
long lines of wood
fog weaves dense
peace of solitude

Here the curves
meanders blind
on magical turns
stumbles mind

all inner demons
the high lands slay
on angel's wings
you fall love's prey.

In the twilight hour
We reached the watch tower

The swinging trunks had got our smell
And one could tell
They weren't pleased

We had just intruded into their dust bath
Post the shower at the pool
Between us the distance
Was one of studied silence
Till one's trumpet froze me to the ground

From among the trees
Big little mud hills surrounded the space

Our clicking lens
Wore out their patience
And we were just nuts
Before that large herd

Some more were coming up the river
We heard someone whisper
And I thought of rebellious elephants
Fighting for territory once their own
Against an invader that spares none

What if this dwindling day hour
They crush the watch tower!

After fifty years
I slipped into the school.

Madame Bela was visibly pleased
The classroom was too empty
Now I've one to do maths with

No less happy was Auntie Aloka
My favorite student is back
She lifted me up and said with a kiss
So vacant felt my class of English
Without a boy from olden times
Sweetly singing nursery rhymes

My eyes searched her and before long
Miss Jaya spoke in her softest tongue
I'm so glad to see his face
Sans him Bengali class was all emptiness

And there he was the only Sir
Amiyo Baboo the sports teacher
Isn't this the boy never won my trust
For always being in every race last

Fifty years haven't changed a bit
Either their age or their spirit
And surely the fun was doubly more
When I stood before the school mirror.

If you're ever on the riverside
where the sun beats your head
you would see the old man
selling hats of palm leaf
but you care not to notice him
having already smelled the sea
and too keen to cross the river
travel southward on the island
till the saline wind scalds your eyes
your skins itch to jump into the waves
yet the man with the palm leaf hats
would not cease to tell you
how burning would be the sun on the sands
and so badly you need to protect the head
by parting bucks that mean nothing to you
but a world to the mouths he feeds
and before you stamp on him a final no
she has one atop her hair
beneath which her eyes flutter like butterflies
her sun rouged cheeks untimely blush
and two born anew lovers
merrily head for the sea
having bought romance
for forty bucks.

on a day hanging in haze
the crow sits glum on a perch

do the flying pairs overhead
remind it of the lost mate
and in the midday lull
it feels a vacuous dullness
when even the search for food
seems purposeless?

i feel a stab of pain inside

whoever goes first is lucky
not so the one left behind

maybe the wings are now too heavy
for the bird to fly into the sky

Her feet rose and fell
between fields of paddy

the grass bowed
then looked up on her way.

If only she had wings
and the winds carried her to her sister
she could land right on the yard of her hut
and take her home by the return flight
but her mind soared no less
so before the sun favored the west
she was right by her
laughing and talking like the yore
with only a line of vermilion
that she felt had come between them.

Soon she looked around
and making sure no one was watching
brought out from her skirt a mango.

She gave it to her like
she was giving a piece of her heart
plump yellow green
with the most delicious nectar hidden within
and when she narrowed her lips
to drink from the gift
her tears poured like the summer rain
mingling with the cries of the parched earth.