Three poems: Santosh Bakaya

Santosh Bakaya

The Lost Blue Bird

A Blue Bird hops onto my window sill.

I try to blow it a flying kiss, but the kiss misses it.
The fistful of blue joy flies away, into the blue beyond,
 snapping that instant bond.

 Had she lost her moorings?
Had some pest ravaged her nest?

The air around me is pulsating.
Chirp -chirp –chirp- chirp.
She has left some notes behind. 
In vain, I flail my arms, trying to catch the refrain
 of those notes; what notes can an uprooted bird provide?

I have a gut feeling, it is still somewhere there,
pathetically entangled in the unfair mists of time. 

I saw her again. And again.
 The poor bird was hopping with a somewhat ataxic gait,
 trying to find a sure-footedness on alien ground.

 Flummoxed, I choked, at the trail of footprints, blood-soaked.

Late at night, in the neighbor’s house, John Denver sang
“Country Roads, take me home
to the place I belong”.
Somewhere, Joan Baez sang,
“I’m five hundred miles from home.”

 I could also hear some plaintive notes.
 I was sure it was the sad bluebird singing.
 An elegy for her lost home.
***

 

2 Not the same

Towards unchartered lands, he headed,
heart beating erratically,
as though in sympathy with his displaced self.
 
The breeze was achingly familiar. But it was not the same.
The rustle of the trees was familiar. But it was not the same.
.
The feelings in his heart waged a war.
“How are you?” A stranger asked, in a rather pompous manner.
 It was difficult to gauge whether the expression
 on his face was a smile or a smirk.

He looked at him with gritty indifference.   
At night he gazed in awe at the infinitude
 of a starry sky, and sighed.
He found it bizarre not to locate the star
he regularly communed with back home.
Maybe it had been displaced too?

Where do stars go when displaced?
Do they lose their twinkles? Their velveteen sheen?
Someday, would he again commune with his star?
The one that made eyes at him and only he could understand
 what it was trying to convey?

***

 

3 The Song that my Granny sang

Every night
she listens to the rustle of falling leaves.
Every night,
she is stabbed by anguish.
Every night
she gazes at the stars.
Every night
with glistening eyes, her ears prick up at muted chirps.
Every night
she feels many a story running pell-mell, silently yelling
for the resurrection of its lost glory.
 
Every night
she traces the grandeur of a mesmerizing tapestry.
Every night
she furtively sneaks into that lost world of vibrancy,
and vivacity. Hope is reborn.

 Disguised as a dust mote,
 she noiselessly slips into that colorful boat,
which will take her home.
She breaks into a Lal Ded song.
‘Zuv chum bramAn ghar gatshaha’.
[God, please take me home, my heart yearns to go home.”

Yes, they did take my granny home- to her final resting place.
Slivers of nostalgia still clinging to her,
like drizzle on parched earth.
And a song still hovering on frozen lips-
 A song of wistful longing for her roots.

---

Setu, July 2024