Aayushee Garg was born in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, India, in 1991. She is currently studying MA in English with Communication Studies at Christ University, Bengaluru. She has previously worked at Tata Consultancy Services as a Software Engineer. She has also been a teacher of Computer Science and Mathematics at a school in Lucknow. She is deeply interested in literature and philosophy. She loves reading, singing and photography. She feels grateful to be gifted with the ability to write poems. She also has a penchant for translation.

1. HOME

Unfamiliar traces
Of familiar faces
Drooping sky
Humbling trees
Fragrant sunlight
A room carved out of rose bushes
Jasmine floods
A shy breeze rushing
Into and out of the attic
Weary eyelids
Sweet yoghurt
Colourless water
Home

2. MONOCHROME

I talk.

I speak to the black and white Moon.

The coloured Sky becomes my witness.

The Sun interrupts.

The Wind starts to sing.

The Tree dances to their melody.

Synchronising,

They don’t let me talk.

I talk.

I speak to the Monochrome Moon.

The deep Sky becomes my witness.

White Clouds run away to play.

The Wind laughs in delight.

The Tree begins to listen.

Synchronising,

They don’t let me talk.

I talk.

I speak to the black and white Moon.

3. MYSTICAL GARDENS

I kept searching

Looking

Hither and thither

For gold

And rubies

And diamonds

Hungry

Greedy

Angry

To eat and be eaten

To fill desire to full.

I kept searching

Looking

Hither and thither

For vengeance

And its saturation

Gasping

Blind

Wealthy

Prosperous

Envious

Lethal.

I kept searching

Looking

Hither and thither

For truth and its sanity

Running

Chasing

Following footsteps

But my thoughts and emotions

Finally broke away

From chains

Of immorality

And immortality

Into myriad bees

Of angels and demons

Of colourless imageries of conceit

Of essential futility.

Pausing

I saw that

Truth never demanded

To be searched for.

Truth lied within.

The soul was its abode

Body its distant neighbour

And mind

A controversial mediator

That conjured

And conspired

Flowers and weeds

In those

Mystical Gardens

Of heaven

And of hell.

4. HOMECOMING

Reckoning trivial tranquillity

Sitting in the secure lap of my distant home

That once was not too far

But I made it so

I patiently drink tea to the lees.

Souvenirs of

Inhospitable homeliness of hostility

And the perilous homesickness for Paradise

Coalescing into a spicy tulsi ambrosia

That tastes sweeter than honey

Has fragrance tastier than roses.

But,

It doesn’t burn my throat.

For the mind chained by the soul

This is another periphery

On my way

On the lookout

For no horizon.

Tea mugs asked my books all this while

When is she going to pour water into us again?

Cleansing soothing running translucent water

That stays in the vessel only until she gulps it down

Nevertheless our sole redeemer.

Is she waiting for the wind again?

[wpdevart_facebook_comment curent_url=”http://ashvamegh.net/2017-issues/xxxiii-october/poems/aayushee-garg/”
title_text=”Did you like Aayushee’s poems? Comment below:” order_type=”social” title_text_color=”#1e73be” title_text_font_size=”18″ title_text_font_famely=”monospace” title_text_position=”left” width=”100%” bg_color=”#d4d4d4″ animation_effect=”random” count_of_comments=”7″ ]