Akanksha Pandey: Figures of Thought: Collegiate Voices across Spaces

Prevaricate

I was sitting in the garden of my cottage
A secluded place.
And I was waiting for it to come
Ahh! Such peace in this place.

I saw a bird
Coming from the sky.
She was preparing to sit now,
On the ground.
She was tired of flying and flying and flying.
Flying is necessary though,
But so is a break.
I saw her coming down and down
Like the blood pressure level when I am stressed.
She finally sat down on a rock
Panting and sweating.

I looked away now
I saw the butterflies sticking on to the flower,
Beautiful and minutely designed.
I saw the flower
Selfless and calm,
No matter to what level it was being taken advantage of.
Someone clicked photos with it as the prop,
And someone plucked his brother out for fun
Then tore it into pieces
Deconstructed and stampened.

I looked again at the bird now,
Her eyes seemed piercing to me.
No matter how small they were
In it I could see the skies and seas
Vast and empty.
She had stopped panting.
She looked at her wings,
Weary and baffled.
The next moment I observed
How calm was the bird.
A fly came and sat on its back,
The bird wasn’t able to notice
But I did.
The bird's calmness was pretty disturbing,
She was so still
What was she pondering over I thought?
One can only wonder
Every mind has its own castles and jungles after all.
It was as still as a sage
Meditating upon maybe journeys of life
How far she has come
How far she has to go
And unconsciously she flew off
Again to routine.

Nearby, a saw a little girl
Her frock was blue and it had yellow stars carved on it.
How beautiful!
No, not the frock,
It was torn and faded
I said about her smile...
How beautiful was it.
But why was she smiling?
She came to me
Sat beside me,
Her face was lit up and calm.
She questioned
What are you waiting for?
And suddenly I remembered why I was there.
She questioned me once again,
What is it that you are searching for?
I was terrified by the way she looked straight into my eyes and asked me fearlessly
As though she has the right to question
While I was unaware whom should I question

But exactly what?
She waited for me to answer while I tried to open the knots with my dark and enslaved vision.
Suddenly she ran away to the bushes and starting collecting  dried leaves,
I wanted to say something before my mother woke me up and said,
You? Still resting?
Enough of the break
Get back to work! 

 

 I am here again

In this dark fury well called the world,

Wondering when did I get a break?

I live in a tomb of threshold consciousness instead.

A surge of necessity

And

Ebb of misery.

That’s life!

*** 

 

White

A white space,
Blank,
That refuses to let anything be written on it.
A white blank;
Yet so full,
And fiery.
If you touch it, you will shrink..
Into a piece of demeaned mass,
baffled out.
A vision that converges,
Where it shouldnt.
And a path that dilutes
Into what it shouldnt.
White
Static
Never changing
Or rather, changing in the same way as always.
That white is full of colours
Of grey and red.
Greyish clouds to get lost into
And red, blood dripping bit by bit
And the body losing its valour.
Turning into a white cold bearing.
The white space,
Scared of letting anyone write.
Afraid of what if,
It became permanent;
As that bruise over the body where pain elopes
But not the scar.
Words dancing in the mirrage
Of love and happiness,
Reality the utmost sabotage.
The white space remains blank;
And occupied as well.
A mystery that cannot be unfolded.
Wants to but cant.
And what?
Is unknown.
Rather, known but...

---

Author's Bio: Akanksha Pandey is a student of MA semester 2 at the Department of English and Modern European Languages, University of Lucknow. An admirer of Literature, following her dreams and instincts, she is in love with the unfathomable beauty of nature, the enchantment of books and music, while trying to decipher the meaning of life and striving to prepare for unprecedented things thrown to her by God.

---

Setu, June 2021