Gopal Lahiri’s haibun captures the poignant ache of memory, tracing a map back to the silent, sun-drenched landscapes of Sonajhuri, for Different Truths.

Someday, little light gets into my room, measuring the resilience. I pick up the old map and find the place. I can point out that grassy field, that hillock of hard rocks and a narrow river with clear water. I can remember all that in the name of the place – Sonajhuri.

flashback
the dust clung
to my feet

‘We sat below a Jasmine tree.  I watched your eyes; they were not looking at me but all the way to the river.  Between us, a few flowers waited to fill our palms. Their petals were soft as secrets, purple like something still beating. Then you looked at me, where something invisible met my eye.

‘The morning sun was a soft ball, and I thought I would hold it out to you. There was a meadow that once knew our footsteps. Then a silence that tasted of river water. The kind of quiet that came later, only when two people had nothing left to say. We never met after that.’

alone myself
I keep my finger
to the wind

Picture from Canva

Gopal Lahiri

Gopal Lahiri is a bilingual poet, critic, editor, and translator with 33 books, including eight edited volumes. Anthologised in over 150 journals and anthologies worldwide and translated into 18 languages across 17 countries, he has received the Setu Excellence Award, a Pushcart Prize nomination, a Best of the Net nomination, the First Jayanta Mahapatra National Award, and First Prize at the 43rd World Congress of Poets. His Selected Poems was published by Classix, New Delhi.