Two Poems by Dibyasree Nandy

 

She Knew of the Thorn

 

Serene as a water-lily

Quietly reposing upon a stilled stream

Her days do not change, her hours have ceased

Around her; stagnated, the wind.

 

Fingers hesitating ever so slight

She unclasped the pot of ills

Unaware of what to find

Brazen courage, unknown sin.

 

She knew of the thorn

Yet she approached the rose blazing

For love to blossom

Blood would flow; pain to be borne.

 

With caution, with even steps

She crossed the threshold, towards a ripened age

The northern zephyr dashed by the grass

Cold, biting, bitter to the skin

But on she ploughed

White raiments protesting.

 

A young knight she had seen

Upon his golden head, a crown of brambles and briar tendrils

A sword through her chest

The apt gallant she had not met.

 

Poppies turned scarlet

Wisps of daisies flew away; withered, the steadfast violets

To the ground she fell, mulberry-strewn

Stained dark with distress.

 

Beside, the fountain gasped heavily on

The wisteria’s tears rained upon the lotus leaves

The garden swimming with her grief.

 

To sludge and mud, the pond transformed

The reeds dared not gaze down at her saddened face

The willow bough bowed deep before the despairing marsh

With wounds, harshened; a heart

Butterflies and birds chiming a requiem

Loud on the air, by Death, silenced.

 

Serene as a water-lily

Quietly reposing upon a stilled stream

Her days do not change, her hours have ceased

Around her; stagnated, the wind.

 

Black Ocean

 

At the candle smouldering on my mantlepiece

I gaze without rest and beseech

“Will you not show me the same dream,

On this night, the next and yet again?”

 

The sea pales

Her black hair spills, timeless

Like an enduring onyx fountain

Cascading without restraint.

 

I care not for her face

But the surges of ebony that call me to bathe

For they billow gently, frail as a feather’s brush

The locks kind as the wind’s embrace.

 

Oh, she bears much power

The tresses conceal her mien; a warrior’s grace

She creates the world and annihilates

Flecks of the rising east and the sleeping west

Dancing upon her silken strands

Lunar hues birthed and ended as tidal waves.

 

I shall wait until the sands have fallen from the hourglass

When will she murmur,

“O Dearest Albert…” My humble name, when will she say?

 

Should a storm of nightmares ever strike

Her bare feet will take flight from the shore

How then shall I earn the courage to kiss

Those locks, a weaver’s pride, the finest of dark lace?

 

By the coast, I’ll stand, I do not wish to wake

The wick’s blinding light shall only ever blare

Where shall I find soft, satin curls by the ocean’s bass?

 

I hope to caress

I hope to dress

Wherein are the pearls and shells

To form a wreath around her head?

 

Oh, the obsidian curves

Evenly plunging

I long to touch the misted hem

The edges disappearing as fog fading away

By the foam and the drops pirouetting as sprays.

 

Closer and closer to her fluttering braid, I inch

With each dream, my soul being wrenched

Deeper and deeper in love

Let me inhale her marine, briny scent.

 

Just her hair, merely her hair

Passion blossoms in my breast

For the undulations remind me of a veil rippling upon quivering lips

A woman’s mourning shroud

As she searched midst the rill of stars

For her betrothed’s home

Fervour alive in her chest always

Till she perished as silver froth neath the wails of the gulls

Happily lingering for her Albert’s returning hulls.

Dibyasree Nandy began writing in 2020 after completing her M.Sc and M.Tech degrees in engineering. She is the author of 'The Labyrinth of Silent Voices-Epistles from The Mahabharata', 'Stardust: Haiku and Other Poems', 'Studded with Rubies; A Hundred Short Stories', 'Meteor Shower', 'Fireflies Beneath the Misty Moon', 'April Verses', 'The Terrorist's Journal', 'An Upset Inkpot' and 'Magic of the Eventyr'. Her individual works have appeared in 75 anthologies and literary journals.