Quarantine

Days will not be same.
The defenceless light makes its mark,
with its hand of shades and darkness
the borrowed sky scripts a diary note,
unravel the gravity.

The goodbyes compel you to plumb memory,
to refine the distant past,
turning soiled pages one by one.
an event note of small details is in service of the present
taking in the most in the shortest span of time.

Hallo and how-are-you are buried in the wound and cries,
there is news every moment
of precision and failure, courage and fear,
looking at screens, lungs are crashing
deaths are a few words, a few sentences away.

Spring blossoms, without human touch,
in search of something small, delicate, elusive
to seek solace in the act of looking
dreams and desires are perfect metaphors.
they are not alone in the day’s story.
.
Staring watchfully out the window, I count
the numbers of fallen leaves and floating petals-
in lockdown, nature rewrites all the time.
still holding the last goodbye in my chest,
I can hear now; the new world is breathing close

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.