Two Poems | Deepa Onkar

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Dream

There it is, the Baobab tree

squatting in the sun, folds of skin shining,

fruit like animals hung on their tails.

Surprise dawns: the Baobab

should not be here; this is my old school

playground. It grows dark, there are crowds.

That singer: I recognize him among

the silhouettes of faces pushing past.

He smiles his thin intelligent smile,

points to the Baobab. I look, and we

wonder, talk, laugh. Inevitably

I come to that sudden swing in the road:

into the shaded afternoon light,

my feet wading into orange and

brown stones. The singer

and the laughter and the hum

of images fade.

In this woken-up light, I know

the Baobab nestles in

the woods among Neem and Peepal

trees, I want to see it meditating again

see that quiet drop of fruit

as if they were unwanted thoughts.

I will meet a better quiet there,

than this room filling up quickly with the world:

outside, the chatter

at the breakfast table rises,

voices begin to eclipse each other.

Infinities

You like safe sounds

~ Carol Ann Duffy

You like infinities

the sheer bafflement of reckoning

with galaxies, numberless stars

distant suns, wild, coruscating.

Numerals scooting to the edge of a page

textbook definitions: degrees

that map the mind off world’s mundaneness. 

For the flesh to thrill to – the sound

of wind through trees,

like a sea. Long aalaaps, lying on moonlit lawns.

The humming away into the background

when the song ends,

when words are exhausted.