We have always been here under the roof
at life’s beginning,
From the heaps of rubble
year by year we gather imaginings.
Of high tide pulling back our blankets,
an estuary lights up between
two red oleander trees standing
in the blooming backyard .
At the edge of the apoplectic evening
we sit between a clump of meteoric dust,
enough to have seen-
How many years more- ten or fifteen?
The cloud passes, the flowers turn again,
I wonder if the end will be as quiet.
Tonight, there will be no sleep
so familiar day, so unsettling night.
………………
Gopal Lahiri
@gopallahiri
Picture Nick Victor
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Gopal Lahiri is a bilingual poet, critic, editor, writer and translator with 33 books 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 19 countries. He has been nominated for Pushcart Prize for poetry in 2021 and Best of the Nets for poetry in 2025. His ‘Selected Poems’ was published by Classix, New Delhi. His recent book ‘Wasp and Filament ‘ was published by Hogg Press, Madison, US.
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