SATBIR CHADHA

 

 

Earth Melodies

 

The breeze that is rattling our fragile windows

Suddenly swishes louder

Through delicate rusty leaves

As they flounder but don’t yet fall

Will it go round the world

Till it swishes through the Neem of my city

And prance around the bougainvillea hedges

There, where it may then be spring

 

Flocks of birds turn the sky a turbulent grey

As I lie on the soft grass at the edge of Trout Lake

A congregation like no other

As they flap and flap in formation

Thousands of them together

Set out and take flight on cue

A long long journey

Annual migration

To warmer lands

My city too perhaps

 

On a seashore a group of children

Have begun a new leisure activity

It’s the time for turtle eggs to hatch

And so the kids sit around the beach

Alert

To tiny spouts in the soft sparkling sand

The marvel of birth of new life

As a tiny babe pops its head

Then

Climbing out of the shell, crawls into the sea

Safe

Guided by a universal melody

Guarded by the children who made it their purpose

To secure each tiny life,

against monsters bent on stealing turtle eggs

 

Ah! The symphony of earth’s delicate balance

Balance of life and death

Death and rebirth

Birth and growth

New life

As the earth too rotates in rhyme with the melody of the universe

hadha-30-10-2024

 

Nobody’s Home, Home To Every Body

 

Some made nests some dug holes

Who built the structure who made it whole

A testament to labouring mankind

Monument of ephemeral lifetime

All all went away

Whoever came to stay

Nobody’s home home to every body

 

Echoes of whispers strains of bhajans

The chimneys’ dark innards

Cling to refrains of happy songs

Humming of soft lullabies

Also suffering sultry youth

Stinging thorny shrubs

Bleeding solitude

Solitude above all

Nobody’s home

 

Fragrance of fresh currency

Freshly ground flour kneaded

With clarified butter

Baked and fried and pots full of tea

Soft little hands clinging to pillars

They don’t want to leave

Mad man nomad

Will always leave

Seeking and seeking

Never reaching

Nobody’s home

 

Packed boxes of silken threads

Swiss pocket watches and Mercolised Wax

Gold embroidered shoes and silver hairpins

All full and all empty within

Nobody’s home

 

Some old teapoys and bone China fine

Did you say family silver when of family there’s none

Old cases full of quilts

A wooden rocking horse

Painted in pink

Hollow corridors home to no one

Nobody’s home, home to every one

©️Satbir Chadha-03-03-2021

 

SATBIR CHADHA

 

SATBIR CHADHA is a writer who lives in Delhi, with her heart in the hills of Naini Tal. She thrives on friends visiting her and breaking bread with her. She is the author of FOR GOD LOVES FOOLISH PEOPLE, a memoir. Her second novel BETRAYED is a medical thriller. BREEZE is her first solo collection of poems. Her second collection is GLASS DOORS, and THE LAST LAMP is the latest.