Soundwaves of Gold

On Poetry in Everyday Life
In and Around Adishakti Theatre

Long ago, I used to write poems about photos taken by friends (who are not friends anymore). It wasn’t a conscious effort at collaboration, if you will. But it wasn’t wholly my creation. It was shared. When I read the poems now, it seems like a different life, I sound like a different person. At the workshop, when we were asked to write a poem about a certain image that we’d seen in our surroundings, I thought of times I had left behind. In whatever shape or form, I tried to recall that girl I used to be. Here is a photo of one of the lamps hanging from the roof of the dining room where we had endless conversations over meals. The ‘poem’ was written keeping in mind this ‘image’. This time the words are mine, and so is the photo.

Words cascade from lips
and lightly float
upwards and away
to the globular planets
that watch over us
only to become entangled in
their netted surfaces
that coat the words with dull gold
such that they shimmer
and whisper
in the vast darkness
long after the footsteps
and voices have decamped.