Mountain Shadow

Despite ringing their own verbal music and
unsung harmonies,
Shadows of various sizes
Converge in the humming of the
Silence in this unknown wetland.

Those bird cries, those voices of water
Losing to the rocks below,
Carry a truth more awful than lies,
An infirmary of flowers
Wither together in man’s grave.

Blue mountains creasing and rippling away
To the limitless horizon,
Hemmed with green shrubs
The forest is reconstructed with the
Long runs of basaltic lavas.

Unspoken roads scroll past
With fierce abandon,
Patchy clouds are in search of address,
Memories swirl not to pass on a tradition
But to break its hold over us.

Gopal Lahiri is a bilingual poet, critic, editor, writer and translator with 29 books published, including eight solo/jointly edited books. His poetry and prose are published across more than seventy journals and anthologies globally. His poems are translated in 16 languages. He has been nominated for Pushcart Prize for poetry in 2021. He has received Setu Excellence Award, Pittsburgh, US, in poetry. He is the first recipient of. Jayanta Mahapatra National Award for Literature, 2024. Read other articles by Gopal.