Wednesday, May 1, 2019

VANDANA KUMAR



VANDANA KUMAR

THE SUMMER THAT WAS….

The month of May mocks me
And asks me
Where are those summer flowers that poets spoke of?
What of the tree that gave the historic voyager his shade?
Who axed its branches and gifted us this concrete maze…


Those fluttering breezes are now the stuff of folklore
Those languid midsummer nights
Where nervous lovers explored new contours
Those homemade lemon khus sorbets
And stolen beals and jamuns


Where vanished the lazy charpoy?
And nocturnal gossip on terraces…
I have no answers for a baffled May
A lame apology for this urban jungle
Sans verdant green lush


As the sun flirts on the western horizon
My temples throb with pain
Longing for an Indian summer of yore
I make my way home





YET ANOTHER FALL

I remember that season with you
It was our favorite time of the year
There I was – quoting Proust
And there you were – watching me

Riveted by the scarlet canvas
We created a rhapsody on the bed of orange
Crunchy and rustling was our passion
Just like those leaves
The air was nippy
The forest on fire

I remember the winter being ‘close enough yet far’
A little like what we have become today.
Come the month of shifting seasons
Another autumn will waltz in
And that for the record will be –
Yet ‘Another Fall’ without you






UNFINISHED BUSINESS

A brave set of dos and don’ts
For us newly ‘lovers turned friends’
We signed on the imagined dotted line
Only to delude ourselves


For every chance encounter thereafter became
A throwback to our past
Every ‘hello’
Pregnant with foreplay
Every ‘goodbye’
Lacerated the skin


When all words failed
We were still visible somewhere
In each other’s pauses


How blinded were we
Not to see
That you and me
Would forever be…
Unfinished business.

VANDANA KUMAR

VANDANA KUMAR is a bon vivant who loves travelling, working with young minds and exploring  possibilities beyond the ordinary. A French teacher and an active member of various quiz clubs, her passions include playing the piano. She contributes poems regularly to magazines like GloMag and has been published in a couple of anthologies. One of her poems was shortlisted and published by the “All India Poetry Society” (All India 2017 poetry competition). Poetry for her is her stress buster, her flight of fancy and strangely, what keeps her rooted too.


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