Poetry: Rudra Kinshuk

Rudra Kinshuk

1. Parenting

They say that parenting

is an art of planting

in a desert.

Life teaches otherwise.

Unlearning often

becomes inevitable.

In my garden hibiscus

grows in abundance

for my dark mother.

Hers is a way of acceptance.

Parenting is a way of worship

of the soul.

Don’t indulge in rituals.

Parenting is no teaching

but a way of unlearning.

 

2. Fragrance of Sawdust

Dipping biscuits

Into steaming tea

is really a difficult task,

like falling in love

with a married one.

An insect finds itself

wriggling

in dew-sunned web of magic.

Is zero is a void

or fullness in disguise?

 

An old sawmill nearby.

Fragrance of sawdust

gets everything

overwhelmed as if the spring is all around.

3. Weeds in My Garden

It is presumed a weed

is a mole on the body

of my garden.

Every when and then

I attempt to remove,

I find out an excuse

of not doing so.

Who wants to bear

a slaughter house within?

Procrastination is not

always a state of indecision.

Sometimes it’s a discovery

of a Buddha

within this carnivorous self.

Weeds sometimes break into

buds of pink and blue.

4. For the Distant Star

The distant star in the blue

twinkles in silence.

Its whisper breaks into dewdrops

on the blades of grass.

Dhimal, the boy speaks

is music to me in this small village

of North Bengal.

Should I kneel here for the whole night

under this leparded sky and weep?

God is tears in silence, a remembrance of seeds.

For the distant star I’ll wait

another life of fragrant roots,

another life of water and pebbles.

5. Summer at Totopara

Tourist eyes look at them, strange,

mother and daughter,

picking up lice from hair.

Extinguished fire under trees

speaks of them who left .

And adventures of Ishpa god

recede silently into forgetfulness.

Tourists find only the pebbles,

but one who smells wisp of fragrance

of water underneath

is a lover.

Summer at Totopara

ends in the anecdotes of Pidua,

the back-faced demon

and withering rivers.

6. Memoir

Memory, a bird of silence

moves towards the blue horizon.

Leaves rustle and tearful seeds

burst into life.

Horses of earth

graze on the celestial pastures.

You promised to return one morning

by the obeisant  paddy.

The evening settles down

on the tree-tops of Garhjungle.

The fort of Ichhai withered and cold,

by the golden sands of the river Ajoy

recounts the weeping tales

of Mother Shyamarupa.

Come, my dear bird,

come back again

to this land of rains

and dark seeds

to soothe the loving soul…

Note:  Ichhai , a character in Dharma Mangal was

a worshiper of the Goddess Durga as Mother Shyamarupa.

7 .The Lone Traveller

(In Memory of David McCutchion)

From the dawn to twilight

you walk among ruins

to listen to the whispers of stones

your camara got flashing on melting shadows

disappearing into the jaws,

the eternal dictates of time.

Yet love is an enigmatic muskdeer

charmed with ephemeral fragrance.

The deul temple

near the forest of Goddess Shyamarupa

evokes the memory of a weeping love.

Before the setting of the final dark

a collective howl of jackals

over the puddles of the river Ajay beside

to signal the beginning of a new retrospective.

Bio: A poet, critic and translator, Rudra Kinshuk (born 1971) is an Indian poet writing poetry in English. He has contributed poems and translations to numerous international journals.  He has authored several books of poetry. He has written his doctoral dissertation on ‘Representation of the Subaltern in Contemporary Bangla Novels’.

Contact: Rudra Kinshuk, Ramakrishna Pally, Bolpur, West Bengal, India, Pin-731204

Email: rudrakinshuk@gmail.com

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Setu, May 2023