The Dawn

 The dawn comes to the shore

washed back on the shoulders of a hefty storm,

spent, ignorant, innocent of what the storm is destined to do;

wreck and break the wings of the night.

Stars fade out when the white moon comes,

and the moon fades out with the wanton dawn

resting on the crest of the hill.

28-5-2021

The Trees

 The Trees

And then came the night when the sounds ceased.

The trees still, quivering, listening, sad;

the trees gentle, listening,far;

the trees swaying just a little, hardly seen, hardly felt,

their presence, a distilled drop of dew.

The night quailed, touched the tree and fell into peace

without longing.

Denuded of knowledge and strife,

the trees swayed,

and the leaves in a gentle surprise

called upon the wind

to break open the code

of the silence between the tree and the night.

Sushama Karnik (c)

 Saffron crushed

between your palms;

the mystique of vineyard all around,

the garments smell of the rain-soaked soil,

and in you hair, the wisps of smoke

of the incense that burnt all night.

The wind-swept trees huddled together

as the storm howled and blew out the lamp.

It was a night without the moon.

But a single star shone all along;

brighter than the crest of the moon and lighter than

the step of a child learning to walk.

Older than the echo in the cave,

your words sounded on that night to me.

The grave tones warned,

Storms greater than what you see tonight

have been witnessed by the humankind.

Put thy little lamp under a shield

and chant the magic of the memory of my name;

I am more than the name; I am the shield;

absorb this knowledge into your dreams,

and as you walk the path you will know

you are never alone.

Sushama Karnik

 A Prayer

Give me a hillside,

clean and green ,

a space with an immense light.

Let the sea recede

back to the reach of the sky.

Let the light fall evenly

on the odd and the even

spaces of the mind

and then let me turn

and find again

the doors once locked and the key misplaced.

Let those doors crumble and fall

and show me the inside

just the way I had left it back in time.

Let the cry of the gull pierce the sky,

and the afternoon feel its pain,

the pain of the birds who left the nest,

forced to live in the ruthless sky.

Sushama Karnik (c)

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Sushama Karnik

7 July at 10:01 · 

Ebbing tide,
not the time to wait for a lover.
Just the moment out of time
to watch the eternal infinite,
intimate sea.
The keeper of your darkest moods,
your moments when you turned
to this spot where the evening says a farewell to the time;
the time that flows in haste
lest the rubble splash and clog its simple heart.

The ebbing tide leaves behind
the splinters that might hurt its own flawless moons
kept meticulously clean, awash on the crest of the storms.
The times when you threw yourself
heedlessly in the waves, receding, listless,
eager to hear you speak, nevertheless.
"No regrets, no looking back; nothing is sad and bleak."
The ebbing tide in a subdued whisper of the wind
merging with sound of the sea, seems to say the words
just for you to hear, a manifestation, just for you to see.

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Waiting for a lover | HD photo by Jonatán Becerra (@ionass86) on Unsplash

Download this photo in Puerto Saavedra, Chile by Jonatán Becerra (@ionass86)

Sushama Karnik

20 June 

Sushama Karnik

20 June · 

A place as cold as the winter moon,
a road as gray as the mist.
That was the time when the moist leaves
dropped from the maple trees

gathered and swirled in the wind.· 

and I reclaimed the peace
brought by a sudden kiss
of something that floated somewhere in the mind.
Places hold me forever close
and I let them be with me.
They brighten my way on a windy day.
The fragments of me scattered in the winter
come together;
I let them make me whole.

14Jay Dev, Tony Langmach and 12 others

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  Andrea Béres When the face of the world changes from day to day, it remains immobile in us..Not the sun-shining sun can dry up the water and take life when it overheats. And there is nothing that can appear in the most stubborn harsh frost or the fog that has sprea…See more

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  Jayashree Chiparikar Superb Sushma Tai

  1

 Homeward bound,

the endless round.

The final stop is nightmare, I thought.

With the morning ended the dream.

The red hot fireball of sun.

came to shine.

I woke up slowly, deliberately;

ready to fall asleep again.

I couldn't sleep.

A sign in the sky,

The Venus de Milo arose,

a terrific, magnanimous statue in a cloud.

I hoped fervently, the final stop was this.

Sushama Karnik