Today's poem is by Dipika Mukherjee

Wanderlust Ghazal
       

My language is a Bedouin thief, delighting in foreign sands;
it understands the erasure of monks, the ritual of palimpsests.

English has no word for Hemanta. No, not Autumn, nor Winter.
No Harvest Goddess, in a veil of mists, opaquely drawn.

The evening lamp in her hand gleams lambent through the fog;
Her voice merges into the howling wind. With abundance, desolation.

Every year, Mount Kinabalu is still wreathed in monsoon clouds.
Cloud messengers may be different, but some still speak of love.

Malay lascars sang of narrow boats, with pineapples stacked too high;
A grievous vastness to this world, beyond human experience.

Wanderlust is a disease. Incurable. Deep from within, it chortles,
The light of the moon cannot be rooted, Dipika, do not even try!

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Copyright © 2024 Dipika Mukherjee All rights reserved
from

Nũr Mélange: A Ghazal Anthology

Glass Lyre Press
Reprinted by Verse Daily® with permission