Poetry: Pramod Rastogi

Pramod Rastogi

You, My Love

God was in my dreams,

Not one among my fleeting dreams.

As you were in His schemes,

On you I wrote my reams.

You came as a gentle flame,

Breathing life into my name.

Your eyes, like dawn’s first light,

Made the shadows take their flight.

I sought you in every prayer,

And felt your presence everywhere.

No star could outshine your grace,

No night conceal your face.

You, my love, my soul’s delight,

The hymn that crowns my endless nights. 

***

Farewell to Love

Letters I had written to her were many,

Yet in words she replied to none;

But with the ink of her youthful perfume

She transcribed her love all over me.

Verses of longing I had inked for her,

Tucked in a book of emotive poems.

In return she left petals of flowers,

Hidden within the book she gave back.

Velvety smooth were her responses,

Whose fragrance restored my esteem.

I read in them all the unsaid she held,

Too shy to give voice to her heart.

My written words stood slightly raised,

And touching them filled me with grief.

In silence resounded her loneliness,

As tender to touch was our love.

Love reigned between silence and verse,

Nourished by both the said and unsaid.

Poignant was the farewell to our passion,

As we gazed at each other, in pain, at our loss.

***

The Flame that Endures

Life is a shrine of contradictions,

Built of joy and tumult side by side.

So are men and women merry,

Though their visions stand apart,

On truths of life not far removed.

Yet passions rise and cravings burn,

Drawing them into one embrace,

To breathe a wonder none can know

Without the other’s living breath.

What keeps this candor so alive?

A sense of mystery, an endless pull,

Two forces twined, though bent askew.

With minds so shaped in different frames,

Is it not the flame each tends for the other

That keeps them burning all their lives —

Each moment hollow when apart,

Each absence scented with longing?

Perhaps it is what we call love,

That quickens two devoted hearts.

Discords may come and regrets take hold,

As tempests scatter fragile days.

Yet true love finds its boundless ways

To bear the storms that pass,

And keep two souls within its shelter.

---

Setu, December 2025