My two poems have been featured in the Swallowtail Edition, The Wise Owl, November 2024. I am grateful to Dr. Rachna for honouring me the ‘Poet of the Month.”

https://www.thewiseowl.art/pravat-padhy

 

Life: A Floating Cloud

Floating clouds in the sky

In a destined path they move

As if hanging from the roof.

 

Often stop for a while

Over the mountain range

People laurel as the silver crown.

 

Play hide and seek

In the dark midnight

With the cheerful full moon.

 

Painter embroider

Poets wistfully deck them all

With syllables of ornament.

 

As time escapes through

They turn old and dense

And sacrifice in the form of rain.

 

A great allegiance

For the cause of others

And wish to be born and float again

 

Life is a floating cloud

Let us bloom it

with fragrance love and peace.

 

*****

The Wish Flag

Conflict and competition

eclipse the voice of the mass.

Slogans of demand and supply

hijack the prime spot

with a mere footnote on clean energy.

 

The ice sheet melts into

grief-stridden flow.

The green turns into brown

and further into barren.

 

No space for the frogs,

chirpings of birds

Red velvet mites, buzzing of bees

in this concrete jungle.

 

Clouds blackened with smoke,

no ripples of joy in lakes,

often laden with caustic foams.

 

Mountain slopes

caved in with naked trees.

No ferry of floating clouds and

the sky no longer decked with

smiles of rainbow.

 

Waterfalls

soaked with cracked stone

River bed

left with wide mud-cracks

as the sea rises and invades

deep beyond the shore.

 

I wish poetry

of the living world

to shape the hues of nature

and sing together the muse

for a colourful world.

 

The Wise Owl, Swallowtail Edition, November 2024 (Ed. Dr. Rachna Singh)