Preety Sengupta

Preety Sengupta is originally from India, and lives in NewYorkCity. She has over 40 published books, mainly in her mother tongue Gujarati. She writes poems in English, Hindi and Gujarati.

The Missing World

While I consider the world my home,

A fool will I be not to know

That Home is a World.

Its walls may be imaginary,

And the roof transparent;

Yet, I breathe it in the air,

It throbs in my dreams.

Night brings in the fragrance

Through the barred windows

Of the “Night-Queen” buds

Thousands of miles away.

My consciousness is stretched

Like its shape. It fits me,

It lets me lean on its image –

The one that I carry around

                        Inside me,

Like a snapshot of a missing lover.

Fortunate

Standing on the shore

When I hear

The continual melody of the waves

I wonder,

Who is this musician?

Don’t his notes ever break up?

When I see

At the edge of dusk

The sky becoming resplendent

I wonder,

Who is this painter?

Don’t his colours ever run out?

Feet get tired,

And want to stop,

But I see the path

Continuing on,

And then I wonder,

Who could be such a wanderer?

What must be his destination?

When inside the heart

Suddenly flowers blossom,

When like a breeze or a drizzle

Feelings stir;

Whenever I become

Aware of being alive –

I know that

I am fortunate,

That I am

A witness to the miraculous.

Transcendence at MMA*

Flowers bloom,

With one stroke of a brush;

Eyes fill up with colours and fragrance

From all those paintings –

So many segments of places and moments.

What a surprise that

The blue skies and shimmering lagoons

Of some unknown land

Leave markings on one’s memory.

The seemingly inert shapes of sculptures

Are infused with the lilt

Of some ancient or immediate world.

Convergence here

Of beauty, imagination.

An instant of creativity

Becomes the very longing of love,

                the impatience of a union,

An experience of life’s loveliness.

Miracles occur at every step,

Dispersing gloom,

Under this canopy.

* Metropolitan Museum of Art