The Red Almirah is trying to remember something ,
and your name stays here, in this house.
I do not know when mahua blooms all around,
others know when the water bodies dry up.
You once called this hour crepuscular, and holy.
Now I embrace the mundane as if it is mystical.
The psithurism in the neem leaves brings succor,
I feel a quiet sense of vellichor in your study.
Outside the blue mountains waits, unruffled, silent,
everything lately feels liminal, half-remembered.
I am trying to unlearn my old obduracy.
Somewhere the crushed leaves move in the wind.
I sit late in the veranda with my black coffee
I wish this light will stay with me forever.
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Gopal Lahiri
@gopallahiri
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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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