Jahnavi’s poem explores sorrow, grief, and hope in a family dealing with loss, highlighting the delicate balance between life and death, exclusively for Different Truths.
a southeaster croons
a dirge by the entryway
the hinges heave and creek
laden with unspent tears…
a storm cleaves a willow
funeral service at home
a murmur of voices
the huffing of beetles on
wilting magnolia, a eulogy
stifles the ebb and flow of a life
reading his last letter
engulfed by a serotinal haze
of tuberose vestiges
pressed between the pages
a circuitous path of loops and circles
An empty bedroom once
painted eggshell blue
the color now fades and peels
the mother keeps winding
his watch clockwise
the dreams keep recurring
her lips emit voiceless murmurs
the bamboo contorts anew
within a tangled coppice
a starling keeps calling out a name
dismantling a vacant bassinet by
the violaceus Jacaranda
they bury the wreckage of hopes
sometimes a breath is the
wingspan of a hummingbird
Picture design Anumita Roy
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