Of everything, there is a season, our ancestors have said. And so, there is a time to sow and a time to reap. A time to accept and a time to let go. Just like the seasons through which we move, our life is a never-ending season of sowing and reaping. In the process, we gather the fruits which are sometimes our challenges and our glories. The pages in the calendar change, we age. Life’s winter is not kind all the time. The decline, the frailty, the suffering and the loneliness -these are some of the themes which I thought about when I penned this work, as a contribution to the wonderful edition of THE WOMAN INC, a beautiful online journal.
The evening drops.
A blue darkness,
on the embittered trees,
lamenting on their barrenness.
The bark of my body, stiff and limp, now
has grown vulnerable feet.
Youth is gnarled in my ancient limbs,
missing, almost like a language lost.
The spark of the yore,
sleep in the marrow, shadowed by time.
The heart beats, morphed now
by each pore of loneliness.
It is destined to go.
Soon to the finishing line.
Life is now recoiled, like a timeless step.
An aged warrior, battling the torn edges
of life, grey of heart, battered in mind.
My body, a reservoir of wrinkles and scars,
my nerves, twirling, turning, sag by the dizzied shaking.
Spring is slipping away, I know,
set not to return to my limbs, next summer.
Oh autumn, stay a while, before
I sink my roots into silence,
cross the rainbow bridge,
to become ashes over the seas.
By Chaitali Sengupta
