sombre clouds hung like frowns of mythological gods
it rained for eons drenching mountains
and green lives to the core
the alpine vegetation
the fairy green grass
or those that sprout strong and sharp, the turf
and when the sun shone
Tao Lhamo Lake spread out her curly locks
which unfolded through landscapes we now call
Rangpo, Kalimpong, Jalpaiguri, Mekhliganj
and unfurled towards Bangladesh we separated
carrying the indigo blue sky
the warmth of ravines and gorges
the warm smell of tropical deciduous trees
the alpine vegetation, the verdure
the music of hill- women filling pitchers
the rhythm of men singing together
the laughter of children playing on river banks
and the quietness of the falling sal leaves.
Teesta II
Teesta is the eye of my landscape
it links the land to the sky
all that flies in the air
all the structures on the land
angular, spherical or hollow,
or rise in the mind like the lax cottony moulds
undulate in her, breaking and joining and breaking again
along with the sapphire of the sky.
My river flows towards you.
Teesta is the life of my land
like my veins it carries the pulsation
through the rows of overpopulated slums
the dingy shops that play loud music and sell momos
between the sentient sal trees’ silent communication
between quantize boulders, mossy rocks and warm turf
my men and women are tied to her with a string.
My river carries their memory.
When rhododendrons rattle off their red
pines trees drop their cones, or pungent fruits
from fruit trees break and fall
droning her sibilant, rehearsing her song she flows
it is music that separates the land and the water
it is emotions, the emotions of a forest that had bloomed
beside the dry riverbed of your eyes.
My river is lonely.
---
Zinia Mitra teaches English
in the University of North Bengal. Her travelogues and articles have been
published in The Statesman. Her reviews, articles, translations
have been widely published in books and journals. Her books include: Indian
Poetry in English: Critical Essays, Poetry of Jayanta Mahapatra: Imagery and
Experiential Identity and Twentieth Century British Literature:
Reconstructing Literary Sensibility (co-edited). Her online articles
include A Science Fiction in a
Gothic Scaffold : a reading of Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein (Rupkatha Journal), Through a
Different Window : I Can But Why Should I Go, (Muse
India ), Master of Science and Non-Sense (Parabaas).
Her poems have been
published in Muse India, Ruminations,Contemporary Literary Review India, Kavya
Bharati, East Lit. Indian Literature (Sahitya Akademi), Asian
Signature.
The title could have been..."My River is Lonely... "
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