Vasant 2023 Poems - Annapurna Sharma

 

Atrophy
By Annapurna Sharma

 

The fragile leaves turned yellow,
curled and collapsed –
trampled by the elephant feet.

 

It is but innate
to carry out –ectomy
the diseased part has no right to live.

 

It is but nature to squeeze
the vestigial juices
from the carcass.

 

To build castles of bone
tougher to withstand calamities
for generations of blood relations.

 

Isn’t it right?
In love?
In war?

 

On whose side are you?

 

Will you shrink with the atrophied moon?
Or grow with the moonlight?

 

Janvari

Janvari,
best time of the year;
worst time of the year.
The scrunching cold bit deeper into the burrows,
mouse crouched in the warm earth,
trying hard to survive.
The leaf knew the days would pass by –
atransient phase it murmured,
shrivelling under the weight of dead ice
Hmmmmm! Groaned the mongoose.
Wish this ends soon,
will I live in another den, in another world...

 

Death – oldage, isolation, amnesia…
The old man sat beside the window,
watching the snow storm, zooming and threatening,
as if – life was in the whims and fancies of the elements.
But she was lucky, she died sooner than expected.
She was in the pink but perished mourning the squirrel,
that nibbled her sandals for a handful of nuts in the winter months…

 

Nothing evoked his memory
Perhaps obliviousnesswasa boon to his slow death
For he forgot her, the squirrel, the cold and life...
But awaited the tea brought by the robot, a mechanical arm,
not hers,
but he thought it was her…

 

Janvari– his best month, his worst month.

.

 

Annapurna Sharma from India is research scholar, short story writer, poet, nutritionist, academic and book reviewer. Her maiden book of poems 'Melodic Melange’ was awarded for excellence, 2019 (Pulitzer Books). Her collection of short stories 'When Jaya met Jaggu and other stories' is published by Hawakal Publishers, 2022. Her short story Waiting… was published in an anthology on Domesitc Violence by IHRAF (International Human Rights Art Festival), 2021. Currently she is on the board of editors of Muse India, literary e-journal. Her short story was shortlisted for Twist & Twain short story contest 2021, poem shortlisted for All India Poetry Competition, 2019, The Poetry Society of India, Distinguished Writer (Bharat Award for Literature, 2018, Xpress Publications), poem about the rivers of the world, Divine Confluence was part of the speech delivered by Dr. Varsha Das, an eminent writer at a conference collaborated by South Asian University and Dhaka University on Hydro Diplomacy.

 

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