by Vinita Agrawal
Vinita Agrawal writes a poem that highlights the passion for the good in life, particularly the values of goodness and gentility. This is a poem of hope, timeless truths and disarming honesty. It seeks to brush away the dark from our horizons.
“The Eastern wind – Malaya – sets free the bitterness of neem
makes sweet its tree bark, turns its scent to sandalwood.” – Hindu Scriptures
I want to be an ache easing out of the chest
A solitude that’s bid goodbye
Rain that’s left the clouds
A dawn that doesn’t lie
I want to be the smile
Taking charge of things bitter and sad
Entering hollows no light can reveal
Plundering nooks no words can scratch
The history of man
is the history of its gods, though bitter
I want my god to stay
Not be carried out of the house with the litter
I want to speak of atoms
in a language ordinary
I want compassion
to change science’s story
I want to be the Yang
giving in to the Yin
I want to feel the rush of love
the way a beach feels a tide rush in
I want your image to appear
when my mind is completely still
I want to know if I’ll ever love anything
independently of you or against my will
Like the wind, I want to set free, longings from places of hurt
Footprints from cloistering sands
Souls from prisons of bodies, music from spiral conches
And the ache from human hands.
Author of four books of poetry, Two Full Moons, Words Not Spoken, The Longest Pleasure and The Silk Of Hunger, Vinita is a Mumbai-based, award-winning poet and writer. Recipient of the Gayatri GaMarsh Memorial Award for Literary Excellence, USA, 2015, her poems have appeared in many national and international literary journals including Asiancha, Constellations, Open Road Review, Stockholm Literary Review, and Mithila Review, among others, and in anthologies from Australia, Ireland and Israel. A winner of many literary awards, Vinita has read at the FILEY Book Fair, Merida, Mexico, Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, to name a few. She is on the Advisory Board of the Tagore Literary Prize and curates events for PEN Mumbai. She can be reached at www.vinitawords.com
