Two Poems by Basudhara Roy

1
Dastarkhwan

Because I have read

the same books over and over again

and come to wait upon

the same patch of land

underneath the hill

at the same time each day,

Because I have trained my vision

to fix upon the skyline

and have gazed at the same view

all my hours —

the sun sliding into ignominy

in the same pool of blood

and the birds crying out

through their same sharp beaks

its shrill light,

I have with regularity received

the same missive —

the same day must be

lived out every day

dusted and folded neatly at dusk

at dawn celebrated

and spread out

like a pristine feast.

2

Mostly

It isn’t only about the terseness of the night

of how hunger defeats memory or even fact

or how the elastic of desire can stretch

taut across impossibility.

It is also about the heart’s coverlet still empty

about how time invariably wins

and how when life’s clapper strikes

the mouth of the world mostly fails to ring.

*

Image: Rafi Haque