HOME
Home is not a country or postcode,
more a state of mind, keeper of the map of my world –
offering a hint of the distance between myself
and the silence out there, the way life reaches
for light, and rays leaning like ladders against the sky
invest my journey with meaning.
The universe never seems to tire of change,
making itself new, daring me to the challenge.
Time holds my life up against the light,
a tapestry, tattered though richly embroidered –
leaving me with a fresh measure of myself.
No longer sure of anything – even the hands
of my grandfather clock run faster beneath the dust
with each passing season – my body conspires
to slow me down, show me things I’ve never seen
though they’ve always been there, camouflaged.
After all this time to be none the wiser
about one’s purpose for being here
is a paradox of many worlds –
the ability to be dead and alive until observed.
Living in doubt and darkness is human,
what redeems is the seeing and being seen.
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IT
It is the singularity of black holes
a swarm of hummingbird hawk-moths
the insatiable hunger of caterpillars
smile of a camel, song of a nightingale
the moon frail as the edge of a fingernail –
It is dirty as a clam, economical as ants
dark as a pocket, convenient as money
nervous as a squirrel, close as a box turtle
an ostentation of peacocks, a siege of herons –
It is hardy as grass, fragile as a tiger
words sleeping between the covers of a book
a fanatic hiding his doubt, a sceptic his faith –
It is an unkindness of ravens, an exaltation of larks
the spitefulness of philanthropists, a plague of poets –
It is none of the above.
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STRANGE TIMES
Strange times are these in which we live –
the falsehoods we are taught, the freedoms we have lost.
Yet humanity never lets go, will not give up the ghost.
It’s taken a long time to get here. There’s no turning back –
no walls, camps, guards, check-points can prevent
a man on his way home, shopping bags in hand,
stalls a column of tanks as if it were an ordinary thing,
not mankind making a stand, landing on the moon,
planting a flag. They never wanted all that attention –
not the stowaways who died of asphyxiation,
angels who flew for their lives from blazing towers.
The price is always the same, your most precious
possession, your life and dreams, your future
drowned on a beach, face half-buried in sand;
a daughter, brutally violated, dead in your arms.
Not knowing if we can find a way forward,
we stumble on like spirits possessed with sixth sense,
carrying the torch of hope in our hearts,
believing in the darkness of the world –
a crack is all it takes for light to get in,
alter our vision, fire a revolution.
Those who trust know how to dream,
keep faith in things unseen –
the quality of darkness is how it lets us see.
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Shanta Acharya, What Survives Is The Singing (Indigo Dreams Publishing, UK; 2020)
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BIO
Shanta Acharya is the author of twelve books; her publications range from poetry, literary criticism and fiction to finance. Her latest books of poetry are What Survives Is The Singing (Indigo Dreams Publishing, UK; 2020) and Imagine: New and Selected Poems (HarperCollins, India; 2017). www.shanta-acharya.com
