Evening falls gently on the resting mountainside.
The last colors linger in the multi-colored west.
Cicadas sing in the dark woods and crickets chirp,
The wood-shrikes and fly-catchers are now in their nest.

The long day is now done, and regrets are a waste,
My problems seem fleeting, insubstantial, and vain:
My shallow victories fade, my ills disappear,
When all things cease to matter, only you remain.

Diptesh Ghosh

I sit under the deodar tree
Watching the valley far below:
A few fireflies flicker, briefly,
But the bright lights of the valley
Mock at their short-lived brightness.
Far above me,
The million stars,
And the bright moon
Keep their silence.

Diptesh Ghosh

The world has cast its spell on me.
I’m caught in her net of loveliness.
Like a fish I gape, open-eyed,
In wonder, forever and ever:

The star-laden cosmos unfolds,
Infinite, endless, with no borders;
How do the planets move in sync?
Exact, perfect, never out of step!
I can barely keep my car in line.

Nothing I see is plain, or mundane.
Dawn shines on saffron-shaded peaks,
Evening sets on the purple rocks.
The sea rushes in and retreats,
Across the white sands, the dark shores
Resounding with deep loneliness;

Seasons change -- the blue waters flow
Past green fields, yellow with mustard,
Apple trees rich with white blossoms --
Till the winter winds shake them down.
Every day, I wake up, somehow,
And find silver strands in my hair,
New wrinkles in my ageing skin…
All things change, one by one, while Time
Playfully lingers, unchanged, timeless.

Wonder comes to me, on certain feet.
How beautiful the world, how diverse.
And here I am, a lost traveler,
Stranded under the swirling stars!

Diptesh Ghosh

A gray winter morning,
Cold and silent;
Shrouded in the gray mist,
Even the birds are sleeping.

I think of the great silences:
Lonely winding roads after dusk,
The quiet, leather-bound libraries,
The forever unsaid words…
From the lips of the newly dead;

And then, somehow, I think of you
Drifting somewhere in this wide world;
We are separated by a million hearts,
In the cacophony of voices,
Just two voiceless strangers,
With so much left to say.

I am a star, among the countless stars,
Frozen in a dark universe,
Utterly silent, oblivious
To the babble of the planets.

Diptesh Ghosh

At this time of evening prayer,
And the hour of quiet solitude,
I keep aside my favorite books,
My art, all the unfinished plans,
My dreams of life yet to begin;

I try to recall what perhaps
May not be true: the stolen look
In your cryptic eyes, the recurring
Touch of hands in our daily work.
The smile that may be meant for me.

Diptesh Ghosh

Only the rain falls silently
Like the happy years before;
On the house where we spent our years,
But can return never more.

Diptesh Ghosh

Old names, old friends, old loves,
Are now slowly fading away,
Like the places we have been to,
Homes that we have lived in:

They exist like names on the map,
Or like faces in old albums.
A mist has fallen over them
We have forgotten the way there.

We remember them with fondness
But we cannot go back ever
Except in half-remembered dreams,
In storm tossed lonely winter nights.

Diptesh Ghosh