Ananya S Guha writes

Two Steps at a Time

I walk ways measured

the steps I take are measured

my shirts and pants measured

my love is measured

the food I eat is measured

the trees and hills are measured

every morning I check the measurement 

to see if everything is measured

my life is measured

my talk walk are measurement

if there are changes in them

I will take take two steps at a time.

Ananya S Guha writes

In the Streets

Now I no longer walk streets alone

Mr Covid is there beside me

But where?

Doctors try to extirpate him

Nurses cradle him in their arms

Children bear his brunt 

Comorbidity is his friend 

But where O where 

Is Mr Covid?

He is out there in Africa, America

And dreaded seas

In Asia and the west

They meet through him

And his ruins cannot be felt

Only his presence, as we are thunderstruck

And back home the children weep

There out in the streets.

Ananya S Guha writes

Pre-Ordaining

I have read between spaces,

that exist in primordial times

handed over by time and history

I continue to read 

and those hard rocks, the monoliths

speak of an age, ancestors

and war head hunters;

I have seen the spaces in time

the onslaught of eternity

and the time of questioning 

the way that ancient myths work

on the present is in a manner

pre ordaining times and moorings

Ananya S Guha writes

Summer Annunciation

It is afternoon,

as slowly, the sun drifts

into a seamlessly

closed world, mine 

and yours,

and outside there is not

even a whimper,

dogs cease to talk 

men cease barking 

the ghoulish night will arrive

still, there will 

be no one to talk to;

as winter has departed.

Winter departs,

with no reminder as to

how it came, interlocked

in skies, and hills 

touch them; tears in my eyes

go to this winter;

this summer 

and eyes moist, mist.

Ananya S Guha writes

Fallen Skies

We have another day in our hands

where afternoons will submerge in seas 

when otiose skies will submerge in conflagration

where the sun will sink over a town

and foothills hasten the night 

there will be movements all around

the dark, the light and grey 

where tall monoliths will babble history 

and I will take a step out of a world 

of infancy. Mine and yours weighed down 

by footprints in roads that never end.

Whisper the truth with dangling clouds 

smirking at fallen skies.

Ananya S Guha writes

A Wayfaring Dog Barks

The day is now mid sun

hangs half between flowers

and clouds

no hangovers, the day simply 

happens with a sinking sun 

and the bowl lies inverted

an empty misshapen vessel 

I go to innards of self

with drums beating by 

there is hope that two selves 

can meet up ladders of a world 

that becomes crankier by the minute

You and I can only hope 

to meet in half streets or half truths 

as a wayfaring dog barks.

Setting Sun -- Maggie Hurley

Ananya S Guha writes

Gathering Vessel of Silence

Washing feet 

memory is 

now an artefact 

when flapping 

of wings 

the crow 

O the crow sullen

bites into night’s 

dreams 

a painter draws my life 

the artistry is taboo

what remains is a neck 

sticking out 

and hands feet 

mumbo jumbo 

Somnambulist I cat walk 

in night’s dreams and tight 

ropes, the crows continue 

to peck at sorrows 

infantile or otherwise I subvert 

laws meant to obey 

Disobedience is after all a word play

only the mind knows how it rankles

in a gathering vessel of silence.

The Birth of the Crow -- Bill Mayer

Ananya S Guha writes

Faraway Dreams

There are people in
the roads, their faces
I can only imagine in
colours of these hills
their sapphire blue
or in their diaphanous
stretch covering the eye
and the smut in my eyes
are removed as these
awesome hills outlive time
every minute by the day

I can wade through the streams
and cast my eyes on sapphire blue
the granite rocks, overhead a bird
hovers swiftly

How swift my desires catch
evening’s fireflies and the land
which nurtures always sleeps
in faraway dreams.

The Forest Has Eyes -- Bev Doolittle