Three Poems by Sukrita

1

Memories

Your shriveled

Winter bark

Is a mere mask over

Those chirpy moments, tunnels of

Dense exchanges, breezy quarrels

Those hours of snow meditations

We soared through the skies

To the sounds of

The universe

The autumnal fall

cannot shed them all

Remember,

I am not the summer green of your

Leaves that comes, teasing you

Again and yet again

On this wakeful

winter morning

I see it all

You are in fact

Empty of your ghost…

I see it all

Today too

Wrapped in that same

green shawl

That ageless spirit

Emerges from the nowhere

Of tall keekers of

Jehanpanah,

Gently stepping

through rows of shadowy trees

as on other mornings

tiptoeing

thief-like

in search for another form

an oak, a chinar or

perhaps a peepal

The birds twitter

on my branches

As the mountains slide

into the jungles

on the plains.

2

THE CHOSEN ONE

The monkeys of Summerhill

as if

motherless

No longer any chestnuts

For them

from this tree

This tree, the chosen one

Struck by lightning

The soul

as if

pulled out

One monsoon evening

The skies conspired

and fell on it

Life stilled

as if

In moments slithering

Brutal silence

Descending

Into twisted arms,

Embracing the tilting

seductive trunk

Roots in knots

The tree barren

Its silhouette in moonlight

Has monkeys on it

With chestnuts

as if

between their teeth.

3

Sulibhajan Temple

Aurangabad

At dusk each day

At  Sulibhajan

When the temple bells ring

And the aarti fills

the fine dark spaces

Cracks and crevices shiver

in the belly of this hillock

All the dogs

with their pups

come together,

crane their necks

and sing in unison

Their half-closed lotus eyes

Reaching into the skies;

the purohit

Playing music on the shila

Sa re ga ma pa dha ni sa

Tails wagging in harmony

Sulibhajan is

The sacred gift of

Tapasvi Aiknath,

Between the wrinkled past

lying crouched

in the caves of Ellora

And the loud galloping present

of the city of Aurangabad,

Here, in complete isolation,

Outside time,

Dogs and stones create

Fellowship in suffering and joy…

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