Love Poem: Longing and Belongings
Arpan Krishna Deb Avatar
Written by: Arpan Krishna Deb

Longing and Belongings

It's not without reason that it rained that day.
Those winter clouds were paler than my dead
grandmother's face. The wet blanket, which
the morning air wrapped around my sleepless
back, bore no pearls. The ever cribbing qualm
that sings the separation of leaving me to love me
wrote those broken words in those striped stones,
Sutlej gave them to me.

"Start again, let go of the bygones -
The simple is not meant to be complicated.
If you're walking your grave through, walk alone."

The body craves as the soul does and only more.
Yet the constructs of love keep me waiting
for the impossibility of being felt the way I want.
The poet sang for the wingless bird which longs
to fly and fly away. Images from a half shut door
of the unvanquished spirit keep my dreams alive even
when the winter clouds turned paler than my dead
grandmother's face.