By Arik Mitra

I stared,

beneath dim lights of imbibed fear,

it was impending; my heart,

she was soon to pass away.

Age old walls — plaster come off in patches,

the low watt bulbs counted in silence,

the cricket and the cicada chirps;

Passed the night below my pillowed death.

Was taking birth the pre-dawn light,

ever unresting howls and calls,

from branches,

from leaf-cloaked paths,

thick with growth — bushes looked on as we arrived;

She and I, forever forlorn.

Shadowed branches, blackened ferns,

bottom-half trunks still enclosed

in lightless pitch;

A waiting — when that glowing ball

awakes behind the distant line.

Still hours to dawn,

pulsed our footsteps — through fallen twigs,

leaves passed above our heads, we walked

beneath the yellow-gray of skies,

beneath the leaves of all shape and size,

like clusters of green dots and forms,

painted on that pre-dawn sky;

Overcast with teeming clouds.

We made our way through the drooping green,

a maze it was, lowered branches-made.

We then walked for the roaring waves,

restless beats upon the wetted sands;

We lay on the beach,

beside the cluttered frond.

Thereafter, passed some days,

she left my side;

Left my side for some heavenly park.

After that came the silence.

I lay in the earth — in a pit two-three feet deep,

I could still feel her like grass and leaves,

lightly brushing over my face.

My breath, was face to face with the sky,

face to face with her visage that the

constellations made;

The valley looks up at the clouds,

the stars fall upon my face one by one,

their immense scorch burns into my face,

I see a sculpture — one that had once been

ours, its eyes

that looked like hers.

At nights, I search the tall grass,

fields, high reaching above my

head, grass-blades cracking

beneath my feet;

I look beyond the crickets’ chirps

for that laconic space.

My lamp in hand muted by fireflies,

I walk past the charcoal trunks,

under the ink-drowned leaves that

break the sky to bits.

When the light, fell straight upon the

briars, I was blind in making love to the trees.

I hung from a thick branch, as if a sloth.

Where the waters fell from heights,

where the plants sloped down the rocks;

The stream, transparent, like flowing

mirrors, and black

over meditating stones;

Half submerged in the flow I brood,

My yogic state sinks under her hearty depths,

caverns gifting whispered chants,

I feel the breathing of stones on my

skin, evening falls,

I now lie on the grass in wait,

until fireflies bring me her face again, a face

where the cosmos sleeps.

---

Arik Mitra lives in Kolkata, India. An IT professional by day, he has been writing for a little more than two years. He writes mainly poetry and short stories in english and bengali (mother tongue). His works have been published by Clarendon House Publications, Red Penguin Books and literary journals like Lothlorien Journal, The Quiver Review, Writers and Readers magazine and more.

To learn more about Arik Mitra and to follow his work please go to https://www.facebook.com/arik.mitra.927