Nabanita Sengupta: Poetry (Voices Within 2021)

Nabanita Sengupta is an Assistant Professor of English by profession and creative writer by passion. Translation remains one of her chief areas of work and interest. Her works can be read in journals and e-zines such as SETU, Muse India, Coldnoon, Café Dissensus, NewsMinute.in, News18.com, Kitaab.org, Different Truths, among others. She has also been published in various poetry anthologies and anthologies of translation. 

To the Poet

There will be time again

to sing of gulmohars and neem

and the bright periwinkle

winking from the cracked roof

of a house in ruin

There will be time again

to sing that mushy song

of how you had once touched

and each touch a fire

that cruised through my veins

There will be time too

to write peans to a god

who refuses to descend

to the murk of this world

happy in heaven.

Now is not that time.

Now's the time for brand new verse

Sing if you must, of a dying child

of all the tongues tied

Chant if you must, the healing verses

to a race that's dead

write if you must, with your body

the woman that you are

And

For once

Let poetry breath 

***

Eve's Choice

Choices come with riders

as it did for Eve 

with the apple that she chose

in conscious defiance

of a power unseen.

Paradise lost forever

in gained wisdom, 

Knowledge brings woes

and fear of comfort bygone

The archetypal mother

Carries that cross of blame

saviour's crown upon the Son

while she lives in sin. 

The apple speaks

of the first quest

the first defiance

the first ostracism

and a bold step

seeking individuality,

an identity self made

not handed down names,

dressed in pamperings -

a pseudonym of dependence

The forbidden fruit

earned a wrath

yet also a home -

a world to make her own.

***

Archived

We are 

reminiscent yesterdays

upon an embroidered chiffon

that sits coy in a wardrobe corner

A heady smell from past 

like an oversized overcoat

wraps the conversations

In the warmth of a wintry tea

through words freshly packed

we dish out old staples

That belonged once to 

to the zone of reality

Yet now, in exile 

Separated by time, 

we speak a language

of deja vous

and count the growing age

of memories, waiting

till the gates open once more

---

Life, Cognition and Creativity 2021 :: Setu, January 2021