My two poems - Abhijit Vyas
(1)
*
My room is charged
with your hush,
I know you converse
only in silence
and in perfect accord
Wherever we have been
The air still resounds
with our silent talk
in perfect accord.
Whenever I return there
- I am drowned -
In the ocean of that silence.
I have not forgotten
and never will
unto eternity
Our wordless dialogue
in perfect harmony.
Again and again
Like the sun at the break of day,
The idea of your coming home
- Returns -
And then in deep gloom
I keep sitting in a lonely corner
- Awaiting you -
Till the shadows in the evening
Stretch thin and long like ghosts.
My ears are eager to hear
The cadence
of your approaching footfall;
And my eyes are agape
To see your lips
Croon my creations
In soulful tunes.
But.....
My ears fail to perceive
The echo of your silence.
I know silence alone
is your dialogue with me
in perfect harmony.
‘You left, beloved,
for regions I have never seen,
nor can I ever dream about, -
In a breach of trust
Negating our pledge
To eternal coexistence.
The stars are now shining in your eyes
and mine are brimming with tears.
Will you really never come back?
Night after night
I keep pacing till dawn
On sorrow - laden tracks
As if I myself had died.
- Abhijit Vyas
(2)
Reminiscences
All the frozen memories
are lying now,
well outlined, in
photographic albums.
A whole era
from my life
has rippled away;
childhood, nursery, playmates,
school and comerades,
letters, friends, beloved,
the college canteen
and cigarette smoke, -
all now has slipped
in woods of yesteryears.
A whole landscape
of teeming memories
in colour and
in black & white,
silent, chronicled account
of a chequered past, -
I love to ruminate upon
when showing it
sometimes ... ...
And at times again,
these birds from bygone days
suddenly begin to sing
and pour into my
dried, dying nerves
a breath of spring.
Reminiscences,
torn apart from my life
like autumn leaves,
swing with the wind
scorched in the sun,
sapless, dry.
And a body,
trembling, spent
Invokes the elements
dormant within;
' O bubble, born in water,
break! Be borne by the wind
and flow like water once again.
I implore thee,
O mighty fire, burn,
blend with the earth,
and turn to ashes.
Then in open skies
raise a forest dense
of wheeling memories,
Someone will be there,
to brood over and to tend.
And, then
I see a toddler
taking his very first steps,
shaping unknowing
the album of reminiscences.
All these photographs
being neatly framed
speak to the child,
reveal to him,
- for he is unaware -
that some day,
he too will flow away
along with the memories.
In the end
will remain
emptiness alone.
- Abhijit Vyas
