Half-Life
by Gopal Lahiri / December 27th, 2020
Sometimes the earth shivers on the fault line-
half-life reflects the eerie feeling of stasis,
come over me, more slowly than ever before
the moon rays drop haiku moment.
The starlit sky holds vast emptiness,
I read ‘The Outsider’ in a stained paper,
the river bank is hushed, inwardly murmuring
slow tidal evening slides me out.
The flame trees are in flower, I remember
burned amber of late autumn leaves,
I start to think of forest and fire by default-
night birds circle over me, offer one-two words.
Voiceless winds that have never been so intense
amble towards lean fingers, my words turn to ashes.
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.
This article was posted on Sunday, December 27th, 2020 at 8:02am and is filed under Poetry.
