Tell me how do I discipline this morning shadows
falling on my working desk,
I have no faith in promised time and space.
Are you there waiting outside?
now from a distance, everyone is turning
out to be not you.
To me, the past is not a closing door or
the wound’s slow burning.
I enter that room from the back door
looking for the threads of the past,
Something I cannot put in an iron chest
or in words filling the pages of a diary.
Memories open their shining faces here
like tiny blue lanterns.
From the glass window, on one of those
long looks, I find myself walking
with you or anyone looking like you.
.
Gopal Lahiri
Picture Nick Victor
Short Bio:
Gopal Lahiri is a bilingual poet, critic, editor, writer and translator with 31books published, including eight solo/jointly edited books. His poetry and prose are published across more than one hundred journals and anthologies globally His poems are translated in 18 languages and published in 16 countries. He has been nominated for Pushcart Prize for poetry in 2021. He has received Setu Excellence Award, Pittsburgh, US, in poetry in 2020. He has been conferred First Jayanta Mahapatra National Award on literature in 2024 for his significant contribution in Indian English Writing. His collection of poems ‘Alleys are Filled with Future Alphabets.’ has received Pan Asian Ukiyoto awards. First Prize Winner in Poetry Contest organised by 43rd World Congress of Poets in 2024.
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