Santosh Bakaya writes

MAY BE

Do you see what I see?
What is that light?
Ah, it is a brown-faced barbet,
holding in its beak an ignited twig,
in the light of which it hopes to locate
its disappeared mate and also the shards
of its nest from which it was hurled out
by some rapacious beast. [Ah, avian naiveté!]

Or is it a candle - the lone survivor
of a candle light march, keeping vigil valiantly,
when all around it, what remains is darkness,
desolate and bleak?

Or maybe, it is the tiny fire
that an impoverished shepherd’s emaciated wife
has built in her hut,
on which she heats yesterday’s leftovers
for her whimpering kids.

Or maybe it is that flaming torch
that will once again
ignite compassion
in hearts, burning down
bigotry,
jingoism,
hatred
injustice
sectarianism
prejudice
discrimination

Communalism
fanaticism
Jim Crowism?

Do you think that this tiny light
can ever become a jungle fire
destroying all negativities of this crooked world?
Come on, tell me, do you?

The Sisters of Phaethon -- Duncan Barker

Santosh Bakaya writes

THE SPRIG OF GREEN

The intermittent cacophony of a youthful heart 

The magic, music, melody of teens 

Eyes fixed on a sprig of green
The frisky squirrel making the number eight
around a discarded crate
pirouetting and preening, feeling great.

Flying on, clutching the gossamer wings of fancy
Ah appearing so juvenile now
All melted, vanished like dew
Waiting for the next cue.
 
Lying on my belly, in the lush lawn reading a book.
Mind meandering through hills and vales and dales
Ruling like a queen over the rich gallery of tiny folks.
Now reduced to a faceless throng
Long lost under masks and cloaks.
Basking in the resplendence of a gauche adolescence.
Nodding my head to the music of dreams
Holding on, ah, so desperately, to their fleeting shreds.
By the chirring grasshoppers, undisturbed
As they sing away, clinging on to skirts of the dying day
Unperturbed.

Unaware of the imminent turbulence of gales
A swirling bleakness and the avalanche lying in wait
As a brick tumbles from the crumbling castles
that I had built in the air
And a vicious kick from a shooting star
Bruising me in an act bizarre.

Let me hurry back and claim my soul
Trapped under that mossy rock still there
in the solid rockery that dad had built
in that lush lawn of that idyllic dawn.

 

 -- Kari-Lise

Santosh Bakaya writes

THE FOG

PART TWO

Section 17 

The fireflies stopped flitting, the birds their trilling.

The tension was killing, the screams blood chilling.

Cold radiated from the earth, gone was the mirth.

The air smelt of malevolence and of painful dearth.

The trees went mute, the forest went back to sleep.

Then rippling laughter resounded in the forest deep.

As two figures emerged from behind the trees 

And broke into dance, playfully sang the breeze.

Hand in hand by the river bank they danced.

From behind the pine tree, I watched entranced.

The moon was like a seraph, sublime and serene.

Stars twinkled and winked like voyeurs keen.

A sudden gale hit them with malevolent ingenuity,

Spitting airy expletives and curses with impunity.

Soon the trees were in its tempestuous embrace,

The gale like a man armed with a sinister mace.

When the sun peeped from behind a cloudy veil

I thought I again heard a blood curdling wail.

Or was it my fertile imagination playing tricks?

 I tried to shake off this scene of a weird mix.

Tendrils of mist here and there surreptitiously looked.

They were like lost ghosts and had me hooked.

I sprang up from the ground, eyes still groggy.

The sun played peekaboo from a sky still foggy.

In the Fog -- Tran Tuan