Bookshelf

Open the glass door of the shelf,
dripping the smell of my grandfather ‘s
collection of Tolstoy’s short stories,
I reboot it after a year.

I pull the old newspaper from the shelf
do you notice?
The dark gods of the Balinese life
a memento, when I visited there long back.

I melt into the bookshelf’s soft hue
Kafka and Camus placed side by side,

Will you argue with your friends
who is the better writer?

At the bottom Neruda’s love poems aglow
in the hidden lamp,
mottled light mutes this wooden shelf
and halo me with the light rays.

Outside the red hibiscus drinks
from the cups of the twilight.

Jasmine and Frangipani season
my love for the books with hope.

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.