Poems by Supatra Sen

Presence…

I can feel his visits often now
My Father
Suffused in glorious light
And melting sunshine
That signature smile
With a trace of sadness

He lived in his books
The day they left
Bound in cartons
For the library
He sat for a long long time
Vacant…empty…
When the Tagore numbers play
Muffled from the old transistor
He silhouettes against
Those golden sunsets
Meditative…

Sitting in the winter balcony
Eyes closed
His hands on my shoulders
A gentle presence…

In starlit forests
When dewdrops trickle
Unhurriedly on wavy ends
He walks moon-bathed
On fallen leaves…
Across miles of solitude
Where the green misty slopes
Embrace the blue horizon
And the sun rises
With a celestial halo…

Love-Bound

They came solitary or in groups
Hovering chirping twittering
Dancing with the sunshine
Among leaves and creepers
Entwining the old old home
In companionship
Through spring and winter

Sometimes for crumbs
Or of routine
Most often of love
For her who lived
With them
For them
In that tree shaded decaying
Trifle lonely part
Of this heaving throbbing city

Soon the promoter’s eye
The woodman’s axe
And builders and concrete
Cars and smoke
Machines and clatter

Homeless and fearful
Threatened and lost
Shrieking in terror
Their cries drowned
Amidst battering and breaking
A deathly silence
Deadly and consuming
Thriving of the powerful…

And then one day
When those eyes
Had stopped searching
And the heart yearning
For those long-lost melodies
They returned…

Home
Adaptation
Or love…
Or knowing
That someone would wait
All along
All through…

The Mighty shall prevail
Love…