Poetry: Aju Mukhopadhyay
A Fragrance of dried Rose Petals
By Aju Mukhopadhyay
You used to come often in the pretext
of doing something or the other
I always greeted you silently
without any formality.
Your usual acquiescence to whatever I might have said
or desired as if that was the reason of your visit
reason enough beside me to sit
lengthening the thread of relationship
without a cue to it, without ever being a chit,
telling me nothing about you nor asking anything about me
as you were quite insignificant in our surrounding
regardless as a human entity in the family
as the one related to a menial;
and I sitting or going round
in some petty errand quite forgetting you
not remembering when you left without a sound.
Me in the prime of my youth, you in your teens;
our actions or inactions were so insignificant
devoid of any reference
that they obfuscated any relationship.
When we left the place of our temporary sojourn,
each of us is always a tenant, was not to any one known.
With the passage of time your presence,
out of sight out of mind,
vanished into the vast world of business!
The days passed by quietly and quickly.
After long many years suddenly I find you
coming out of the heaps of oblivion, quite vivid.
I wonder without my knowledge how you hid
into a hitherto darkened niche
telling me loudly enough
that you have a permanent place
in my heart’s recess;
so close yet so far for a meeting
nor any happening between us
brooking no cause for it anywhere
no cry no urge.
A fragrance of dried rose petals wafts in the air
making me aware
of the past making an upsurge.