Stonehenge Poems by Mitali Chakravarty

Mitali Chakravarty

Wishful…

I will dance with the druids

at Stonehenge, walk with 

ghosts of the past 

from British Raj in the

cemetery at Park Street.

I will talk to the wind

on Himalayan peaks,

rustle with pines and 

deodars, rush with 

tumultuous waves 

on Ganga’s banks,

swish across the Cape,

where Vasco and Dias 

measured their steps. 

Each land has lived a 

different story, tied by 

words that Lucy’s progeny

mouthed into languages. 

Chameleon-like, her lineage

blended into hues of their 

new homes. Then grew walls,

walls that splice life, living. 

 Is that why missiles fly,

despite a connecting sky? 

Is that why incarnadined

rocks weep dead feathers? 

Did the druids know? Could 

they foretell? Will the stones

answer my soul as mesmerised 

by strange murmurs, I wait…

***

Whispers at Stonehenge

Monoliths that stand tall 

amidst the green, stretch

to the skies invoking a past 

when tides of time had not 

sealed borders; when threat

of arms did not bleed

mushrooms clouds. 

They weathered the wind, 

the rain, the storms —

but never bombs. 

Did druids then dance in the 

wilderness that still flows 

unbidden in the long grass,

waving to tourists with

ocean-like undulations? Now

visitors sprout among ravens

and sheep dotting the green.

The ravens fly connecting the

the Earth to the sky, calling out

to the spirits of yore that

rise on solstice with camper

crowds. Do they all harmonise 

at sunrise with ancient souls 

to find distant peace?

Or are these just graves, as 

the learned say, eons old? 

Was history as bloody then, 

before acid fields or purple-gold 

skies rained destruction? 

How are we to know — except 

from the voices of these stones? 

A draft whispers…

“What is the power of a few facts

to the magic that wafts from 

these stones? The magic that

seals, heals all humanity…”

The monoliths were, are, 

will be. Life ebbs and flows. 

The rocks remain, a witness 

of all times and tides. 

Eons later, will they still remain

to recount more tales, adding 

wars, weapons and then, 

perhaps, an evolved, peaceful race? 

***

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Setu, October 2022