When we wake up in the morning,
the grass is carpeted with fragrant white death.
‘Where-the-honeybee-sleeps’:
shefalika flowers, their name
itself a delicate perfume of tenderness.
Little drops of ivory white
with an orange stem
beneath an orange core:
blooming through the night
of a tropical Bengali fall.
Whose ephemeral lives
can never bear the burden
of morning’s dewdrops.
Slain when the sweat of Usha,
the dawn goddess, condenses
on their fragile hearts,
their lifeless wings lie
scattered in our blue garden
at sunrise.
We walk, hand in hand,
through the soft tapestry of petals,
our immortality wafting away
with wind
and memories
and dew.
Green grass, carpeted
with the fragrance of white death.
Srinjay Chakravarti is a 34-year-old journalist, economist and poet based in Salt Lake City, Calcutta, India. His poetry and prose have appeared in numerous publications in over 25 countries. His first book of poems has received an award from Australia. Absolutely straight and square, he is a teetotaler (no nicotine, no caffeine, no drugs), never married, a celibate and loves it that way!
© 2007, Srinjay Chakravarti
Halfway Down the Stairs 