Supatra Sen: Poetry (Life, Cognition and Creativity)

Supatra Sen

Halt…

A desolate obscure platform

Abounding in greenery

The dusty seats expecting none

The ticket counter with rusty shutters

Winding paths overgrown with unknown weeds

Lost to dark forests… dense and evergreen

In winter wrapped in mist, 

In the rains embraced by clouds

Cradled by trance

An artist’s finest creation…

The stations before and after

Rich in sights… resonant in sounds

Throbbing with life and dreams

People’s usual destinations

But this the soothing interlude 

Connecting two grandly orchestrated 

Pieces of music….

 This perhaps never a destination

But only a brief stillness…that precious silence

Amidst the rush and turmoil

Of an enchantment called life

***

Waiting

Once just a stretch to pace

In anxious anticipation

Of down-train announcements

Bounding homewards

A sleepy station

With a couple of vendors

Living in their own world 

Of winning lost matches 

And scoring dream goals

Few travellers, fewer buyers

Never in a hurry 

In the later years

I would steal time 

To be in this ethereal camaraderie

With excuses to miss trains

Sometimes on the over-bridge

For a grand sun-down

Or in the shade of the ‘Jarul’

Showering petals of lavender

Concealing me in its leafy architecture

From worldly gaze

Come Spring and the crimson ‘Palash’

Would be in glorious bloom

The red sprinkle carpeting

The moss-coated earth

Egrets hovering over cloud-mirrored ponds

A couple of canines in endless frolic

Picturesque dwellings dotting

The near-by landscape

Their wooden gates ajar

Celebrating arrivals

Or departures…

Many years…

Sun rain and mists

I still hallucinate 

A dreamy-eyed boy 

And an untamed warrior sister

With the aroma of soil and rivers

Peeping through the thickets

In awe of the lightning express 

And I am still waiting

At the station

For my train

My journey

My destination

Soulwards…

***

The Return

Another escape…

So often now

The car winding along 

Unfamiliar twists and turns

 A late winter afternoon

Nearly the dying moments of the day

The sinking sun 

Through the leafy mesh 

Peeping through the tall palms

In the shimmering water-bodies

Across the vast sweeping landscape

Butterflies flitting

The pungent fragrance of unknown blossoms

Shadows lengthen

Darkness descends

Stillness…

And the voice of silence 

Mystic Nature!

I am homewards bound

Escaped…

That I may at last return

To the ‘echoing greens’

My peace

My motherland …

***

Companions All

Confinement… isolation

Deadly virus deadlier urbanism

Masks to be worn

Races to be run…

Survival of the Fittest

My ‘room on the roof’

With its old-world balcony

Splashes of greenery 

To combat the surmounting grey

A few sparrows, an occasional oriole

Darting squirrels seeking tidbits

The sun-kissed armchair

Trailing creepers

In quest of the fleeting blue

Pearl dewdrops on the serrated leaf edges

Caressing the melting sunshine

The delicate fern

Battling the crevices of dampness

And the promoter’s axe

Co-travellers all 

In this journey

To evolution

To Survival

To Enlightenment

To ultimate Freedom…

***

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Life, Cognition and Creativity :: Setu, December 2020