1. Have We Met?
Yes, it’s true that we’ve met many times

Shielded by jazzy sun hats
Protected by obscenely priced shades

Ambled with practised languorous strides
Amongst fashionistas wafting classy perfumes

We’ve chit chatted about this and that
Afghanistan and pandemic blues woven in for effect

I’ve laughed with a lady like tinkle
Projecting my ancient lineage

You’ve opened doors for me
Hiding your chauvinistic streaks

But we forgot the most relevant conversation
Which my eyes, have yet to have with your eyes

2. Never Coming Back
I remember that feeling of deep loss and unfathomable hurt
As a tiny egg fell from a nest high up in the rafters of our home
An old colonial home with balustrades and white columns
Which had sheltered and nested many birds

It lay splattered in a gooey mess on the grey verandah floor
The yolk still wobbling piteously amidst the opaque white
This senseless loss of an unborn life awakened something inside me
A rebellion of sorts, an unknown terror of that which is beyond my control

The twittering would -be parents had set up a cacophony
A bird dirge of lamentations and breast beatings
A grey pigeon with inquisitive eyes bobbing its head
Nuzzling his partner repeatedly to appease the pain

An untold story nipped in the bud in one grotesque sweep
Like the millions of unborn babies squashed in war
Prey to traffickers and abusers or killed in random bombings
Children of a lesser god fluttering their clipped wings

I think I’ll teach my progeny to lift a wounded fledgling
Tenderly in their moisturized well fed hands
And nurse it back to health with all the love they have
For childhood once ruptured is never coming back

3. Shiv and Shakti
Two sides of the same coin
The primordial principle split
At the advent of creation
A duality in our lives
Constantly striving to meet

Energy is blind and rudderless
Until impregnated with consciousness
In the same way as Purusha is sleeping
Without the potent drive of energy

Caring, warmth, protection
Motherly love of God
O Shakti I bow to thee

Clarity, knowledge, consciousness,
Paternal love of God
O Shiva I worship your symbolism

One incomplete without the other
May the chakra of human existence
Keep your chakras aligned
To the love of Parmatama

4. The sun
A bruised sun
Waded across the dismal azure
Battered beyond recognition
Scarred and disfigured
Panting for life
Asphyxiated with noxious fumes
Its gold raiments tattered
Its incandescent glow faded
The sun smiled bravely
Through the deadly haze
He had to live on
As the world depended on his rays

5. I miss the letters that you wrote
I miss the letters that you wrote
To me on crisp masculine paper
With a hint of high altitude Bukhari smoke
From your narrow bunker
Permeating the sky blue handmade paper.

The letters that you wrote
Sitting on a lonesome solitary picket
Somewhere in the high Himalayas.

You often told me that you could see the Chinese
From your vantage point
And even hear their music being aired from their transistors.

How it amused me to imagine you
Sitting all bundled up in your parka and monkey cap
Listening to Chinese songs!

I treasured those letters like my life
Always keeping them safe in layers of my neatly ironed salwar kameezes,
Opening them surreptitiously to read and re-read,
Colouring a deep rose at the sweet nothings
That crept up amidst the fire and fury of war-like anecdotes.

Your letters always carried bits and pieces of you—
The wide toothy grin, the quirky lift of a brow, the bristly beard too!

Those letters that reminded me of the huge rhododendron blooms
That crowded stunted shrubs,
The Chhangu Lake frozen and virginal white
Where not a bird dared fly.
I miss those handwritten letters.

Letters in which you poured out your dreams and aspirations,
Sometimes as simple as the bullet motorcycle of your childhood yearning,
Or the house in the hills you wanted with some apple trees.
I wished you had said peaches too,
For those were the ones I wanted.

Your letters came with unfailing regularity,
Bringing me a world of hopes and joys.
They came with the tinkling of the weary postman’s bicycle bell,
As he smilingly handed them across the metal gate.

No one writes them any more.
They message cheeky messages,
They send me WhatsApp forwards that leave me rather busy.
I miss the letters that you wrote in a stylish cursive writing—
The Ts crossed decorously, the Is dotted painstakingly.
I miss the letters that you wrote me
From icy slopes up high…

Lily Swarn, International Beat Poet Laureate for India in 2023-2024 and recipient of Caesar Vallejo Award for literary excellence by UHE, is an internationally acclaimed, multilingual poet, novelist, essayist, columnist, gold medalist, university colour holder, radio show host, and Peace and Humanity ambassador. She and has over 70 international and national awards including the Chandigarh Sahitya Akademi award. Her poetry is translated into 21 languages. She can be reached at [email protected]

Lily Swarn