This Autumn
Here we lie
on stranded sand,
our skin unleashed,
a bolt of silk.
Above us, cornflower blue
the frozen sky and
suspended leaves
ablaze
like fiery stars
filling our lungs
as they rise and fall
with the smell of wet wood,
smoking damply.
This moment
poised archly,
crisp
and ready to be plucked;
this burning autumn flesh.
You Do Not Smile Anymore (or, Summer in Delhi)
Morning-glory clouds roll
over a washed horizon, like foam
on the backs of crazy-horse rivers,
and dust distills
coating silent leaves
after the screaming squall.
Nothing is left untouched—
no bird, no beast,
no heart in motion;
magenta bougainvillea ripped
from burnt-brick facades,
trellis-like fingers clinging, just barely,
to shaking window panes rattling
to a standstill.
How eerie this stillness,
after the raging storm.
It is not long now
before the clouds drift, and the balmy air
is once again ruthless white light,
sunlight pouring scornful gold
on heaped mangoes,
the season’s sweet, saving grace.
On street corners, smoke rises
off charcoal-grilled corn.
Passersby, listless
and unsmiling,
do not give a second look,
heedless to hot air and dust
rising and falling,
now as much a part of their lives,
as breathing.
Cats and people crawl
into dark, cool spaces
only to emerge
and sniff the wet-mud air, tentatively
hopeful at the first crack
of thunder’s whip.
Nandita Jaishankar studied Anthropology at McGill University (Montreal) and Asia Pacific Studies at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver). She has been living in New Delhi since 2003, where she works as an editor. Her first book of poems, The Memory Bird, was self published in 2009. Her poems have been featured in an anthology of poetry, Writing Love (Rupa & Co), published in 2010, as well as in the forthcoming Fall issue of Pyrta: A Journal of Poetry and Things.
Here we lie
on stranded sand,
our skin unleashed,
a bolt of silk.
Above us, cornflower blue
the frozen sky and
suspended leaves
ablaze
like fiery stars
filling our lungs
as they rise and fall
with the smell of wet wood,
smoking damply.
This moment
poised archly,
crisp
and ready to be plucked;
this burning autumn flesh.
You Do Not Smile Anymore (or, Summer in Delhi)
Morning-glory clouds roll
over a washed horizon, like foam
on the backs of crazy-horse rivers,
and dust distills
coating silent leaves
after the screaming squall.
Nothing is left untouched—
no bird, no beast,
no heart in motion;
magenta bougainvillea ripped
from burnt-brick facades,
trellis-like fingers clinging, just barely,
to shaking window panes rattling
to a standstill.
How eerie this stillness,
after the raging storm.
It is not long now
before the clouds drift, and the balmy air
is once again ruthless white light,
sunlight pouring scornful gold
on heaped mangoes,
the season’s sweet, saving grace.
On street corners, smoke rises
off charcoal-grilled corn.
Passersby, listless
and unsmiling,
do not give a second look,
heedless to hot air and dust
rising and falling,
now as much a part of their lives,
as breathing.
Cats and people crawl
into dark, cool spaces
only to emerge
and sniff the wet-mud air, tentatively
hopeful at the first crack
of thunder’s whip.
Nandita Jaishankar studied Anthropology at McGill University (Montreal) and Asia Pacific Studies at the University of British Columbia (Vancouver). She has been living in New Delhi since 2003, where she works as an editor. Her first book of poems, The Memory Bird, was self published in 2009. Her poems have been featured in an anthology of poetry, Writing Love (Rupa & Co), published in 2010, as well as in the forthcoming Fall issue of Pyrta: A Journal of Poetry and Things.
