In a Storm

A turbulent thundering storm gathers pace, it is scorching inside and outside in the afternoon it's getting dark.

I am a tree....I carry notions of hope in my wide open arms.
I am the dancing breeze on the still waters of a mountain lake,
and the deep blue surging waves of an ocean; I wait for miracles to unfold around me !

Fervent as hope, indelible as memory,
I have lighted my pain in a lamp and it glows.

This is the story of friends, strangers a few moons ago
On different tracks running parallel, yet coming closer each day
To suddenly meet at a beautiful junction of verse, such is poetry!

Fervent as hope, indelible as memory
I have lighted my pain in a lamp and it glows!

Hello friend.  Hello hello hello.. Echoes boom, in a garden of words,
It could be us, it could be you.
This is the story of friends, old as the universe.

One fine morning, when birds sang & flowers bloomed,
A breeze shook our curtain of reality,
& into truth we zoomed;
We saw intricate patterns on the ground, still as statues
Carved in shadows & light of the real world but shorn of its vice.
Minarets, mandirs, steeples, mindful people of all persuasions
Together yet separate, moving along enchanted trails...

Where are the ropes, where the fetters, that chain our minds
and keep us in tethers? We looked on in wonder, & amazement at the beauty that exists, freed of shackles running unconfined.
Unconfined at last of inherited customs and handed down heirlooms

Like gifts of heavy woollens in sweltering summers afternoons!

For what we saw was a new tapestry emerging out of the dull
old real one; 
You needed new eyes, new ways of seeing to see it & feel.
You see it ?   Ya.... isn't it very clear ?

The road ahead holds bugles on both sides, 'silence no more' the signs read, big bold red letters that smash old ones, challenging
their very existence, their intent, the sanity of their archaic minds.

Grace, good behaviour, just got redefined, no longer clothed in silence, or bent over to please; but speaking up for what is right, condemning injustice, standing up for truth with all their might.

The truth. That we are equal persons of equal merit, of equal abilities and more than equal to the world we inherit. This has been kept from us for too long, this truth, this undeniable reality of being. At last, the moment has arrived to embrace all that it offers in a beautiful song.

Fervent as hope, indelible as memory .  
I have lighted my pain in a lamp and it glows.

This is the story of friends, strangers a few moons ago,
on different tracks running parallel, yet coming closer each day
to suddenly meet at a beautiful junction of truth, such is poetry!

Fervent as hope, indelible as memory. Indelible as memory,
Keep flowing as a river into the waiting ocean of vastness, of equality.

You are a tree....You carry notions of hope in your wide open arms
You are also the dancing breeze on the still waters of a mountain lake, and the deep blue surging waves of an ocean. You wait for miracles to unfold around you.

And me

 

 

Smeetha Bhoumik

Smeetha Bhoumik is a poet, artist, editor, founder of the WE Literary Community, founding editor of Yugen Quest Review and author of two poetry collections.

In art her major theme is the Universe Series in oils and mixed media.

Her poems feature in national/ international journals, anthologies including The Polaris Trilogy - Poems for the Moon 2023, TMYS Review- Stories & Poems on Culture & Identity, (Readomania, 2022), Sunflowers – Ukranian Poetry on War, Resistance, Hope, Peace (River Paw Press, 2022), Oxygen – Parables of the Pandemic 2022, Quesadilla & Other Adventures 2019, Muse India 2017, 2018, Life and Legends 2018, Modern English Poetry by Younger Indians– Sahitya Akademi, 2019, among others.

 

Edited for Unlikely by Jonathan Penton, Editor-in-Chief
Last revised on Friday, April 5, 2019 - 01:57