Save the dates, the days which really matters.
The rolling light passes by, the marked once arrives only twice.
The marked days of the market is fixed, the crafted stalls ready to be displayed.
The labour cultivates it’s hope stringing to Devine.
The earned money flurry their patched pockets in a hurry.
Coins rolling like a bicycle with no handle to direct it’s Id-an paradisiacal slide.
The visit to the hill tops is a routine of daily excavation.
The untraveled paths is a chapter to be explored,
As the shrines of lapping nature weather it’s wheels,
The disguise of sun and wind unfolded every couple weeks.
The autumn to bloom, from buds to fall fruits,
The cock shrills it’s hote and the bamboo-smiths travels distant to fold manoeuvring shoots.
A cluster of bamboo shoots, shrilling in groups.
Letting the wind sliced by sword of the hills.
It’s green tall giraffe-an trunk, a secret bower of the serpent’s king.
The mirror sight of green, light yet reen.
The tattooed hands harvest the needed sticks of green.
Bundle the green, few old, few new and let the baby bamboo shoots to bloom.
The ritual of turning green into a crafted artefact’s.
Shredding of bamboo into fine strip art.
The scaling sound of crafty knife slicing the bamboo rhythm the cracked heels.
Bundled and pressed under the slab of wooden sheet,
To avoid the curly twists of the bamboo tips.
The floating fingers weave the bamboo sheets,
Few small, few big, few round and few as free flowing soul of mist.
Be it box, bowl, mat, fan or broom, the crafty fingers shapes the bamboo into multi hist.
Mingling the power of nature and the creative craft of people of the hills,
Helps and explains the lived experience of sustainable use of nature and needed-hood.
Decade old charm is earned when the brew memories channelled into being.
The decade old glasses hanging with a hope of string,
Fearing the dust of urbanization, not decay the crafty art of artists to behold.
Decades of decay is rewarded to artist who preserve this bamboo-smith’s.
Author – Sonali Gupta
Gumla, Jharkhand, India.
Bio – Sonali Gupta has currently completed Master’s from Centre for English Studies, JNU New Delhi India. She’s a poet from Gumla district, Jharkhand, India.