BHARATI NAYAK

BHARATI NAYAK

FEEL ME

Is there too cold in your place?

Does cold wind bite your body?

Has there been snow fall in front of your house?

Touch the snow and

Feel me in the snow melting

Between your fingers.

Does your pet cat

Moving around you

Seeking your warm touch

Then stroke her head and

See, I may be there.

You are walking in your lawn

Grasses are bending to touch your feet

You pick a blade of grass absentmindedly

Perhaps I may be there

In that tiny grass blade.

You are walking in the open

A soft breeze blows across

Feel me in the breeze

Caught in your ruffled hair.

A shaft of golden light

Falls on your varandah

You draw a chair to the yellow light

And sit there

to read morning newspaper

Feel me dear

when a sunny warmth hugs you.

EARTHQUAKE

Me, the earth

You see my beautiful face

The beautiful sky and greeneries

Lovely flowers and sweet chirping birds

You dig

Dig and build

Your sky rise

You burn

Burn my woods

You cut

Cut my forest

You stop

Stop my flow of rivers

The exhausts of your vehicles

The shoots of your industries

The toxins

Of your weapons

Pollute

My water and air

My children

Animals and birds

Forest and flowers

Die of exhaustion

I cry

Cry of pain

Cry of anguish

Cry out of anger

Boil and boil, under

My crust

I heave hard

Boil anger

Shake and shake

I want to bring down

Your sky rise

Crush them to ground

I become angry

Really angry

I shake your prides

Crush your vanity

Raze them to ground

Then I sigh of relief

And become normal

Once again

I engage in my creation.

LOST LIKE THIS

Oh, I remember,

Reading my poem about ' Baby Falak and Nirvaya'

in a poets' meet.

But I lost my poem there.

The poem could not see

The light of the day.

Why do

Poems are lost halfway?

Why do they lose track?

Did anybody

Throttle their necks?

Or, did any one

Shred their soft petals

In demonic darkness?

Why do

Beauty and innocence

Die before coming to full bloom

Or hang in the Cross?

I just simmer in burn

And think,

Ah, what more have I done

Than merely writing poems?

BHARATI NAYAK

BHARATI NAYAK,born in the year 1962 ,is a  bilingual poet,critique and translator from Odisha,an Indian State lying on its eastern coast.She writes in English and Odia.Her poems have been published in many magazines,journals ,anthologies and e-books of national and international repute such as  Rock Pebbles,Orissa Review,Utkal Prasang,Creation and Criticism,Circular Whispers,Nova Literature-Poesis,PoetryAgaist Terror,56 Female Voices of Poetry,,The Four Seasons Poetry Concerto,Tunes From the Subcontinent,Amaravati Poetic Prism,Pangoline Review and the like.She has  published  three poetry books- 1-Padma Paada(A poetry book in Odia language) 2-Words Are Such Perfect Traitors 3-A Day for Myself