Poetry and Art: Srijani Dutta

People

People

The souls who pass like wind

Like raindrops

Falling from the trees

Are not the people

Whom we call home;

People pass

Pass like wind

Like rain

Falling from trees

Become passerby

***

The man and the cosmos

The shortest man’s thoughts on cosmos

How short the world can be

Comparing to the weight of the stars!

How short one’s name can be

Comparing to the deeds of the self!

How short everything becomes

Comparing to the fall

Of a tiny, single raindrop

Upon the vast sea!

How short everyone seems to be

Comparing to the arrival of no-one!

How short our existence becomes

Comparing to the unheard noise of the sunrise!

The names among the names

Search for their places

With such nameless-ness

That the stars shed off light

To enlighten the aura

Of the names of all the names-

Life, existence, universe, cosmos

Whatever people name it.

How the universe is born

We know not-

How the universe transforms its colour

We know not-

How the universe gets its name

Nobody knows-

We just pass it from God

How the universe finds its name-

God proposes,

Man passes

From generation to generation

To make a life-time journey

With darkness

And with light.

The size of the universe

Is the size of all the stars

Combined-

Altogether-

As a whole-

This young one looks

At the mirror

To see

The cosmos

And

Miraculously

Finds his soul.

***

The Sleepwalker

A sleepwalker’s dream

There is a room

And there is a soul.

The eyes see

The dreams

And the dreams are sorrowful

No-more.

In the dream, the soul sees the raindrops

Falling from the eyelids;

In the same dream, the soul listens to the words

Of some lost fellow souls,

Lost as passerby

Lost as unwritten words

Lost as unknown tunes

The sleepwalker's dream

Of fear and fright-

In the dream, the soul walks

To find out

A pitcher

To store the words

The tunes

Only to imprison

The unconscious sleep

Within its material body

The sleepwalker’s dream is not the dream

Of anyone else

The soul dreams even in darkness

Sleep is darkness

Darkness is sleep

The unconscious rages a war

To see the lightness-

Lightness of the body

Lightness of the being

Lightness of the dream

Around the edge of the eyelids.

The sleepwalker sleeps a bit

Only to avoid the sleep

It feels weightless

When it wakes up

And feels no sleep.

***

The movable boat

Where is my boat?

Maybe-

This is the time when I have to spread my wings

To fly and explore

And listen to the calls of my heart-

The ultimate door destined by destiny

Not today (?)

But tomorrow for sure (?)

This certainty comes as I realize my calls

When life gives you lemons, make lemonade out of it

And drink it like an expert-

Who loves diving into the pool of taste, smell and senses;

It allows oneself for glory 

To attain glory for eternity

Maybe- this is the time

Maybe- these words will give me wings of faith

Of wisdom

Blood comes out from body

And the body acts like a vessel

It is almost like sailing

And navigating life

Through water, sand, mud and hope-

To reach there. From here

Where is my boat?

A psychological cage?

The cage that hinders the body and mind

Is not the tangible cage

This cage is like wind-

Blowing and blowing

With no intension of stopping on some buildings’ roofs

Caging and freeing oneself at the same time is an art

From the curse to the blessings, one has to go

For the mission-

The mission of transformation

Along with the boat.

***

Wings

The Process of overcoming dissatisfaction

Dissatisfaction is a disease

Like a serpent crawls inside your body

And you feel the sensation of its movement.

An eerie feeling is caused by

Displacement

Maybe-

From your lung to stomach

It is ephemeral

Reminding you of the existence of the human life,

Existence of its own self.

It is not the opposite of satisfaction

It is a feeling that makes you stand

Between two oxymoronic conditions

As if you are not fully determined

You have a little bit of empty spaces in your stomach

That makes you crave more

You don’t know what you are craving for-

When will it stop?

Will it stop ever?

Dissatisfaction engulfs one too often

Just like a whale swallows other fishes of the sea.

A complete unsaturated existence-

While satisfaction implants the aroma of happiness in your mind.

It makes you do other things,

Not the same things anymore

As you have achieved whatever you want

You need a relaxation

A break from the eating, swallowing

So, you allow yourself in the slow process of digestion

Like parasites,

Dissatisfaction and satisfaction sail through the passage of time

Only to make the host aware that she is caught

Or stagnant

Or floating in a pool of neutral feeling

When you reach this feeling,

You understand that time has come to leave

And you leave

Because you have tasted all the textures of feeling

You overcome the sharpness of pain, the lightness of painlessness

You hop like a free bird, act like a butterfly

And from your underbelly,

A magic comes out

And riding on its wings,

You flee and fly

***

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Setu, February 2025