After Life
One early morning
On the new leaf
Of a branch emerging
From your favorite sunset pink
Hibiscus plant
Sat a baby butterfly
Stunning and still
In the verandah
Quiet and alert
As you were in your lifetime
Nearly blind
In recent times
Your ears always perked up
You were a happening person
The Red Pierrot, beauty that it is
Offers a glimpse of
Life after life
Behind the Seen
Some poemlets
Beautiful 'poemlets' that gently touch the imagination of the reader and leave a lasting impression.
Iridescent blue stars dangle
On the insides of my eyelids
In daytime darkness
The sunlight caresses the outside
My space, my universe
*
The language of thunder
In the pitter patter of rain
With slashes of lightening
My dialogue, my silence
*
Dewdrops on rose petals
Falling on thorny branches
Homing on pebbles and rocks
My emotions, my thoughts
*
Streaming down the windowpane
Is the rain water filled with
Bits of the rainbow
Chopped and capsuled
My grief, my pains
*
Big round red moon, hanging
In the blue-black bowl above
Defying the stillness of the oceans
With the ebb and flow of the tide
My love, my passion
*
Who can cross the border and return
Who can rise from the ashes of the pyre
Can the corpse walk out of the grave
My ghost, my self
Sukrita Paul Kumar, poet and critic, was born and brought up in Kenya. She held the prestigious Aruna Asaf Ali Chair at Delhi University. Formerly, a Fellow of the Indian Institute of Advanced Study, Shimla, she was an invited poet at the International Writing Programme, Iowa, USA and Hong Kong Baptist University. Honorary faculty, Durrell Centre at Corfu, Greece, she has been a recipient of many prestigious fellowships and residencies. Her recent collections of poems amongst others are Vanishing Words, Country Drive, Dream Catcher, Untitled and Poems Come Home (with Hindustani translations by Gulzar). She is the “Writer in Context” Series co-editor, being published by Routledge UK. Her co-edited book on the eminent writer Krishna Sobti is the first in the series. Amongst her critical books are Narrating Partition and Conversations on Modernism. Her translations include Nude, poems by Vishal Bhardwaj and the novel, Blind (HarperCollins) by Joginder Paul. A guest editor of journals such as Manoa (Hawaii) and Muse India, she has held solo exhibitions of her paintings. Many of her poems come out of her experience of working with the homeless, street children and Tsunami victims.