Chaitali Sengupta

The evening drops. 
A blue darkness,
on the embittered trees,
lamenting on their barrenness.
The bark of my body, stiff and limp, now
has grown vulnerable feet.

  
Youth is gnarled in my ancient limbs,
missing, almost like a language lost.
The spark of the yore,
sleep in the marrow, shadowed by time. 
The heart beats, morphed now
by each pore of loneliness.
It is destined to go.
Soon to the finishing line.

Life is now recoiled, like a timeless step.
An aged warrior, battling the torn edges
of life, grey of heart, battered in mind. 
My body, a reservoir of wrinkles and scars,
my nerves, twirling, turning, sag by the dizzied shaking.

Spring is slipping away, I know,
set not to return to my limbs, next summer.

Oh autumn, stay a while, before
I sink my roots into silence,
cross the rainbow bridge,
to become ashes over the seas.

Chaitali Sengupta is a published writer, poet, translator, reviewer, and journalist based in the Netherlands. “Cross Stitched Words” her debut collection of prose-poems, has been recently published in the USA. Her two translated works are “Quiet whispers of our heart” & “A thousand words of heart”. She has contributed largely to the esteemed international anthologies and online/print journals.