Three poems: Sangita Kalarickal

Sangita Kalarickal

AKICITA

Every bullet has a name
of the life it fiercely claims.
The fallen tell tales
of songs they’d sung
in another time,
never to be heard again.
Of loves waiting up
for a familiar knock,
never to be heard again.
Each their own lives,
their own people, their own peoples.
all who once knew their names.
And when the sun sets 
over the tomb of the unnamed soldier

in each land,
breezes whisper gently

Say it.
Say the name.

Those names which live on

but in mournful ballads through eons…
Will they disappear

forever?

 

Notes: Akicita is a Sioux or Lakota word for warrior.
***

 

A BLOODY SPRING SOMEWHERE

winter songs drift

on icy drafts through wooden window slats

tunes of lament,

of darkness,

of unharvested fields.

 

by the wayside, the sakura

peeks into slow, rising

temperatures;

each face a pink smile

until April storms bash down

from the raging skies

…

…

pinks float on the current now

sun winks on the ripples

“...clouds of gloom,

But these are transient all;”

I am not so sure anymore.

 

winter songs drift

on icy drafts through wooden window slats

 

Notes: The lines “Sometimes there are clouds of gloom, But these are transient all; " are from Charlotte Brontë 's wonderful poem, Life.

***

 

LINES OF COMMUNICATION

Snap my suitcases shut
And walk out
Never to look back.
Every step I take, I wonder

How were the cracks

formed? 

Was it what you did?
Was it what I did?
Or what I said?

Dissection
Over
and over.
Again.

Do paths cross naturally
To diverge
again?

One step
before another heavy step.
Leaden.
On molten tar.
Sinking.
Each moment a lifetime,
before I realize
It was never about what was done,
...only about 

          what 

you never said.

***

Bio: Sangita Kalarickal is a wordsmith, crafting in the forms of poetry, both free-form and haikai styles, and fiction. Her work has been published in several e-magazines, and anthologies. She utilizes her left brain at her day job in technology. Dr. Kalarickal lives in Minnesota, USA with her husband, kid, and her garden which she shares with wildlife, sometimes happily.

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Setu, November 2022