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Syndic Literary Journal

Poetry: Aju Mukhopadhyay

Photo by Mukesh Srivastava

 

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.

 

Compiled/Published by LeRoy Chatfield
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