Amanita Sen: Poems
In the garden
In that distant garden,
where the deck chair
awaits me, moments
flow watchfully heavy
with the ancient wisdom
of the trees whispering
to each other that they
have known me for long,
as closely as the last breath
knows the rhythm of life.
The leaves there giggle, nod
like little girls guarding a secret,
that I am often seen sitting by
the lily-pool, sipping the evening
tea but they don’t spill this out
to anyone, not to the gardener.
The earth and you-The Pandemic times
And now the earth holds you
like the mother holding her
sick child, fallen asleep.
Your stillness is new to her.
She remembers you romping
around noisily-a child gone
awry, misled by the hungry times;
where hunger took to many forms.
Malaise blur your senses
but you distinctly hear
the busy chatter of the birds
the swishing of the trees,
and it feels the freshness of
the dawn is near, the one
in which the fever leaves.
A Wish
The visit is long due,
to the trees father planted
decades ago in lure of
a permanent address here,
long after he will cease to be.
They were deodar saplings.
“These will grow sturdy, tall”,
he said, “will remind you of me,”
with a father’s smile that lightly
tosses the idea of mortality
like the necessary herb added to
a dish, leaving for life to taste it.
Time handholds you through impermanence.
For all that is not so, to touch their peace
I am sure to visit one of these days, the trees.
*Amanita is the author of 2 volumes of poetry – ‘Candle in my dream’ and ‘What I don’t tell you’. Her poems have been published in numerous journals. She is a mental health professional living in Kolkata, India.
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