Revisit: What's New, What's Old? (Laksmisree Banerjee)

Happy New Year

We have now set foot on this 

      Summit of newness on the ledge

Pledged our progress from  

      Tattered to Happy Good Times

Our bright painful tears

      Rolling down with the lilting rivers

Our glaciers already in summer thaw

      With the sun-sprinkles on a new born day

We will move surely to the next goal-post

      Despite the hidden crevices

Deep chasms and precipices

      The fear of a sudden fall

The wavering cloudy night will indeed

      Embrace the sun after darkness

The blooms will gladly unfurl

      The chirping birds will take to their wings

Across the multi-hues of rebirthing while

      This holy hour we look deep into 

Each other’s soul for solace

      With the balm that will heal and love

With open arms, clear hearts

      And closed lids of prayer and grace

      For all our world in this radiant new phase

      This rare blue-grey New Year whispers  

We are human and divine as well 

      So let us celebrate each other for

Better times to come beyond the haze.

***

Incandescence

You wish

to catch the fireball

whirring in

the whispers of your insecurity,

spreading its balmy luminosity

deep in the darkness

of your hidden green shadows?

You wish to tap

and trap it

in your small whirlwinds?

The fireball rolls high and far

beyond and above

every black entrapment,

filling the heart and face

of every tree, every mote

with the glitter of its own soul,

with the resonance of

its sublime trumpets,

over and up and down

and far away,

Till you succumb to

its torpedo-strength,

its starry far-fetchedness,

its ignited ablutions

In the dwindling sea-storm

the fireball catches you,

cleanses you,

fulfils you and lacerates you

with its own red blaze

Till you hold up

your washed flag

to its canonized fire.

***

The winds of change            

I am as gloriously temperamental as the wind

Playing frivolously in my erratic wings

The kind earth shivers as the cruel wildness

Of the Bacchic gale ravages in full rage

Scours through the lands, seas and skies

With its unruly hair running helter-skelter

The winds surge with unstoppable ire

Deluge expanses of plain, ocean and azure

The sapphire waves in frothy full-some foam, 

The grey roaring clouds the drenched loam

The pigeons, sea-gulls, cats, deer and lions

All tremorous in the merry tumult of my wind

Yet soon the volatile storm bursts to melt into

The soft breeze dancing in my lucent veil

My fluttering cover flying in the amorous cuddle

Of the breeze whizzing high to softly snuggle

The blazing orange sun in my translucent soul

Casting a tender glow of pervasive iridescence       

While diving deep down to kiss the green fields

The yearning twines and trees of tangled forests

 While swiftly the wind ascends from the unfurled sails

 of waddling riverine boats to heights beyond the highs

Then it wings through the white feathery clouds

                                                 Of the ether in variant shades of the cerulean and blue

Into the rainbow clouds of kaleidoscopic aureoles

Till the wind re-awakens life in all its vibrant hues 

As I discover my free bird-like Love in the flurries

                                                 Of its changes, caressing finally the wind -----  

***

Procreation

              

Nature’s fervent sunny semen

      Its white orbed radiance pours pulsating

Into the greenish brown vital germinating sites

      Of inscrutable networked jungles of bonding ---

In enamoured intensity piercing, hugging, 

      Loving through its sparkling secret tangles

To create, burgeon, fertilise and invigorate

      The infinite wraps of green corn fields,

The multi-hued efflorescence at its best,

      The baby leaves sprouting in moist warmth

The bees gyrating around flowers in natural coitus

      The foliaged trees in the flux of orgasmic songs

Ever in the warm shining spree of dripping nectar

       Longing to procreate a golden harvest of fruition

            Till the blazing, palpitating Circle goes down to rest

                  For another new day of Nature’s Creation

                          At its crowning crest.

***

Hide and seek

                   

pearly icicles drop

from the ledges

the wayward breeze

in cold wantonness

blows them in

against my tremulous

eardrops playing with

the peeping sun

an amorous naughty dandy

a lover boy of the freeze---

my happy hours blaze

and wither at once

with the changing notes

of the orchestra

as the blizzard comes and goes

as frivolously cruel

as the freaky glow

sunny gold and biting cold---

they play hide and seek

a game of awakening and sleep

of currents in the blithe deep

as I row and ride and run

unstoppable as the rain and sun

undaunted in high and low tide

while I laugh and weep

counting the milestones of love

till descends the flying dove

***

Hopes of tomorrow

                                    

Roving across the mind’s ocean

in sinuous waves

on pinions of saffron desires

on planks of pellucid images

on feathers quivering with fire,

    the seed

            in reverie

                    with eyes aflutter

dreams to

touch the sun.

Her nimble hopes

          soar through aerial stretches

                  the endless fields of the cerulean

in lambent molecules      

till she meets her god ---

Till the tall, great, tender, benevolent sun

tells the seed “I have come, my love, I have come”.

***

Laksmisree Banerjee

Biodata: Laksmisree Banerjee

Prof. Laksmisree Banerjee is an established Poet, Writer, Editor, Literary Critic, Educationist, International Scholar, Rotarian (a Multiple Paul Harris Fellow) & practicing Vocalist, with many National and International Awards, Books & Publications to her credit. She is a Senior Fulbright Scholar, Commonwealth Scholar and a National Scholar in English from the Calcutta University, India. A University Professor of English, Poetry & Cultural Studies, an Ex-Vice Chancellor of Kolhan University, she has taught, lectured & recited in Universities and Literary Festivals across the globe. Has been widely anthologized with Eight Books of Poetry, One Hundred Twenty Research Publications and Several Academic Books. Of the many awards she has received, a special few need to be mentioned of her Sahitya Akademi  “Avishkar” Honour  for her multiple expertise, cited as “A Scholar-Artiste and Poet-Musician”, her UGC Postdoctoral Research Award for her path-breaking Literary Work on the Comparative Studies of World Women Poets, the Honour of The Connossiuer of  Creative & Literary Arts by the Tunisian-Asian Poetic Society, the Kala-Ratnam Award and the Reuel International Lifetime Achievement Award 2021,among others.

 Dr. Banerjee happens to be the Indian Rashtrapati’s Nominee on Boards of Central Universities & believes in using her Pen and Voice for Social Justice, Peace & International Understanding.

---

Setu, December 2021