Ghazal: Nature

Field of poppies, brimming saucers, wildflowers of nature.
The night, a bedspread, thin, unfeeling, dark hours of nature.

Foraging lichen and twigs, studious sunbirds weaving nests,
their trill in lonely lanes, morning showers of nature.

No roots or forefathers to hold hands on new lands.
Stories cascade on pebbled tongues, harvests, scours nature.

Daily rides on Circle line, footfalls on escalators,
pauses between breaths, your eyes, fleeting flowers in nature.

The clink of glasses, bull running, indices of numbers.
Bees building hives, spinning nectar, manpower of nature.

Wooden handrails of the carousel, bobbing of life’s circle,
what journeys to scale towers? It is, but only, our nature.

Thorns in my throat, tenure of this life, a slow kinesis,
rising levels of sea lick at lands, power of nature.

Hold the urn of memories, passerby, to the ebb of waters,
deliver the strands of pearls into the lap of Mother Nature.

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Shilpa Dikshit Thapliyal is a former computer professional turned bilingual poet and writer from Singapore. She is a Pushcart prize nominee and author of  ‘Between Sips of Masala Chai’ (Kitaab International, Singapore, 2019). Her poems have been featured in ‘The Best Asian Poetry’ – 2021, ‘Trivium’ (Kyoto Writers Residency) ‘Quarterly Literary Review Singapore’ (Vol 19, 20), ‘Yearbook of English Indian Poetry – 2022, 2021’,  ‘The Tiger Moth Review Eco Journal’ (# 7)  ‘OF ZOOS’, ‘to let the light in’, ‘Atelier of Healing’, ‘Shot Glass Journal (USA- #24,#28,#32,#34,#38)’, ‘Taj Mahal Review’, amongst other anthologies and journals. Some of her poems have been translated into Japanese, Chinese Art and Spanish.

Artwork by Kita Das.