SANJUKTA DASGUPTA, INDIA (Peace Poem)

Sanjukta Dasgupta
In search of peace

Sabre-rattling
Groans of drones
Zooming of bombs and bullets
Those divine teardrops 
Glistening dewdrops 
Heal the angry hungry earth
The calm ragged shawl of peace  
Stretches itself like a desperate mother
Soothing the grumblings, rumblings
Crumbling of a sadist-masochist
Homicidal- suicidal suffering earth



Kurukshetra - the killing field

At midnight that night
The mother of a hundred dead sons
Looked up at the midnight blue sky
Crying out in futile protest
Raising her arms towards the azure tent
She wept, crumpled, destitute
The statuesque corpses
Of her one hundred sons
Strewn caveats, signposts of folly
Blood drenched, perhaps penitent
Now set to rest forever
Serene, calm, composed
Peace was restored at the price
Of rivers of blood
Sanity reinserted itself
Peace like a healing balm
Soothed the open wounds

At the gentle touch of restorative peace
The scorched and bloodied earth
Throbbed with the joy of resurrection
The green tender grass blades 
Pierced through the enduring earth
Like flags of promise 
Hailing a saner world.


Profile:
Dr. Sanjukta Dasgupta, Professor and Former Head, Dept of English and Former  Dean, Faculty of Arts, Calcutta University and Fulbright Fellow. She is a poet, short story writer, critic and translator. She was a member of the General Council of Sahitya Akademi New Delhi and Convenor, English Advisory Board, Sahitya Akademi, New Delhi. She is the President of the Intercultural Poetry and Performance Library, Kolkata. She received the WE Kamala Das Poetry Award in 2020 and the ETHOS Literary Award in 2022.
Dasgupta has 26 published books. Her eight published books of poetry are Snapshots (1997), Dilemma (2002), First Language (2005), More Light (2009), Lakshmi Unbound (2017) Sita’s Sisters (2019) Unbound: New and Selected Poems edited by Jaydeep Sarangi and Sanghita Sanyal (2021), Indomitable Draupadi  (2022). Her poems have been translated in German, Serbian, Bengali, Hindi, Punjabi, Kashmiri and Tamil.

No comments :

Post a Comment

We welcome your comments related to the article and the topic being discussed. We expect the comments to be courteous, and respectful of the author and other commenters. Setu reserves the right to moderate, remove or reject comments that contain foul language, insult, hatred, personal information or indicate bad intention. The views expressed in comments reflect those of the commenter, not the official views of the Setu editorial board. рдк्рд░рдХाрд╢िрдд рд░рдЪрдиा рд╕े рд╕рдо्рдмंрдзिрдд рд╢ाрд▓ीрди рд╕рдо्рд╡ाрдж рдХा рд╕्рд╡ाрдЧрдд рд╣ै।