Shamayita Sen
Stasis
Sweat smear on a cloud-clad autumn sky, an eternal wait — and, I know I’ve lost to Time, this summer, as I continue grazing on fields. But Baba used to say, Nothing is lost in waiting, and the best emerges in patientdeliberations. Just like grandma would wait on orange peels and potato slices to dry, or pickled mango to accumulate all the sweetness of the world, to take them home as gifted scents. As I internalise the structures of this world, wonder what might happen if I laze a while longer, and ruminate on the movements of celestial bodies, my reverie breaks. I open my eyes, and I’m only a speck of dust on floating cumulus clouds.
afternoon sun
shimmer on the remaining
strand of spiderweb
While Writing on Motherhood
I sit on haunches
painting toe nails while
futile thoughts and half-baked
poems on motherhood
taunt me.
I scratch my head.
Snowflake memories drop,
cascading my lap. A garden of
raked up childhood images
awaits final edits.
Eid ka Chaand
The moon, now
a new-born’s cradle,
now the hanging guavas
of my pock-marked breasts,
is the measurement of time
away from you, the bulging
distance gnawing between
your continent and mine.