POEM: Five Poems by Sreelekha Chatterjee

Mind’s Unseen Home

My opaque mind is a terrace
of a single-storied house,
with buildings
on two sides—abrupt, rising high;
walls with clinging creepers—
shapes grubbily espied.
Shadowy forms of humans and events—
looming and flickering—
at the front, phantasmagoria faces
the road, the back
akin to clinched teeth, always obscure.
Memories leave their footwear—
o, their eternal adhesiveness;
at one end, a seat always empty—otiose,
perhaps an endless wait for
the unnamed one, bright and refreshing;
a makeshift screen hosts images,
temporarily, that flare and dwindle,
walking the path,
swipes clean like lost murmurs of dreams.
A blooming flower peeks,
from its hidey-hole,
appears like a sudden
consciousness from the accumulated
cognizance, on the liquid concrete floor
of the windless terrace.
All over the sky—up here, there, or across the way? —
the Sun breaking out in its usual glory—
forever out-of-reach,
while a buzzard of sensibility
circles above, with abortive efforts,
houses itself with the sky.

Annotation: My mind experiences an emotional barrenness, resembling an empty terrace. An empty seat is forever there, indicating an absence, perhaps a spiritual emptiness. I am reminded of an incomplete purpose—unknown to my sensibilities—every now and then. Whenever I try to search for a meaning in my memories and life events, I meet with an indiscernible hollowness.

Notes: This poem was first published in the Fixator Press (September 2025)

Possessions of Eternity

In the dim, auroral glow of dawn
when inundated with the overwhelming calm,
an apparel of tranquility wraps my soul,
I sense the presence of eternity.

When the cerulean sky with
the sun at its brightest
in my joyful eyes shine,
mellifluous notes of birdsong—
amid the gentle murmur of leaves—
fill the air, intone like a devotional prayer,
I experience the depth of eternity.

On a showery day when the
comforting rain falls onto the parched earth,
nature enlivens in a vibrant jade
and the scent of verdure intoxicates the air,
I acknowledge the mode of eternity.

When the purple dusk gathers
after a red sunset,
I walk beneath the mysterious sheath
of dark blue that transforms into a multitude of
starry sparkles and argent Moon,
I discern the magnificence of eternity.

Of all voices, there is one that
comes from within—a harmonious voice of love
that whispers in my ears;
stays forever—familiar yet unknown,
as if heard since time immemorial;
lulls me into a sense of gratitude,
an unwavering quiet;
I heed the clear enunciation of eternity.

Moments of eternity lie invisible
waiting to be perceived;
its rhythms are too diaphanous to touch.
Once discovered, like a memory warm and dear,
I become a part of the eternity.

Annotation: Eternity is not something that has to be discovered. It is present in our surroundings, if we learn to observe—in the auroral glow of the dawn, the cerulean sky, the rustling of leaves, the mellifluous birdsong, the warmth of the red sunset. It’s in the harmonious voice of love that we have been listening to since time immemorial, within our own selves. Once deciphered, we will know that we are all a part of the eternity.

Knowing What’s Inside

An assemblage of cracks within me
consumes as a harried slave
who winces at her own imperfect model.
Abrasions and scratches
often unfixed, unsettled.
Realisations come in dribs and drabs
when in each of their abysses—dark and deep—
lurks something despicable
but herein splendour breathes.
I break again and again, fall on walkways—
fissures with weeds adorning
delicate, refreshing blooms.
The false façade shatters, thunderclap,
many groans, curses and yells of
memories enliven—heartbreaks, lost loved ones,
long-held regrets, muffed opportunities,
desires exceeding necessities.
With riotous demons heaving inside,
the unwelcome emptiness, uncomfortable nonexistence
do not know when transform into cradles of gratitude.

Annotation: Every life faces emotional setbacks that appear within as a congregation of imperfections. Realisations dawn on me in most unexpected ways. They are generally found in the dark, uncared crevices of my mind, resembling an auroral bloom after a dark night. No matter how many times I break, every time I rise again with a bud of transformation within me that never fails to flower.

A Presence in Every Absence

I am an earthen pot that
clinks from repeated use;
told–untold history, a subject of reverence,
breakage not to be masked,
neither a mark of woe nor an inevitable spoil,
marvelous even in a broken state—
mended with the resilience of powdered gold.

Within me inhabits a fruit of experience,
for we are illustrious, every single one,
often splits open to share
the seeds of wisdom that
propagate in foreign territories.

My mind corroborates insight,
at times refuses entry to any
mulish nail, a life’s lesson—
needs piercing for deciphering—
imposes fissures on the block, the mind’s wall,
in an attempt to stick in.

My body shall mature with time,
grey hair and wrinkles will manifest,
along with a sneer of inabilities,
akin to a stone hurled onto glass
shivers and shakes in sole, irreproducible designs.
My mind-fashioned manacles of age
will not hold me hostage,
as I shall rejoice, unheeding of the external rind,
my soul searching cheer, tracing perfection
in new ideals of beauty—stretched
and one with ineffable completeness.

Annotation: My bodily sufferings are superficial. Their physical manifestations in the form of deformities—ruining the rhythm and uniformity of a comfortable life—are bound to remain a source of distress till I learn that true beauty remains as it is inside—intact and always flourishing.

Eschatological Questions

Death, inherently unknowable, is the greatest wonder.
Is it a delicious fruit at the end of a flowering season?
Or, a dark cloud with an enveloping gloom?
Is it the light at the end of a tunnel beyond vision?
Or, a falling star lost to the universe’s conspiratorial plunder?

Spirit leaves the body as a puff of wind.
Do we mourn a lived life or its absence?
Cadaveric ecosystem fully active, gears up for a feast.
Body cells unleash an ephemeral matter, mood belligerent;
muscles rigid, joints locked, stiffness of demise sets in.

Does one hear the wailing of a banshee when the end is near?
A harbinger from the netherworld, announcing a death call.
Or, are cries of cats and dogs considered bad omens?
Do people dying in wars experience them? Or, do their intuits stall?
Do hundreds of deceased on the bloodied/ambrosial Vaitarani river steer?

Funerary rites accomplish the travel of the departed.
A soul is ferried by a boat to the hall of final judgment.
Successful travel ensures its passing into the afterlife.
Record of deeds tags along post life’s abridgment.
God of Death presides, its transition to heaven or hell uncharted.

A sense of immortality prevails while living.
Does the cognizance of mortality reside in the dead?
If only the ponderous chameleon* reached the humans
before the agile lizard, and the inevitability of death was fed,
resurrected humans would return from the realm of nonliving.

Notes:
Banshee: A female spirit in Irish folklore whose appearance or wailing warns a family that one of them is about to die.

Vaitarani: It’s a river mentioned in Hindu religious texts, which lies between the earth and the world of the dead, the realm of Yama (God of Death), and is believed to purify one’s sins. The righteous ones see nectar-like water, while the sinful ones see it filled with blood.

*A common African myth is that God had sent a chameleon as a messenger to humans to inform them that they would be immortal. A lizard eavesdropped, misunderstood the message, hurriedly reached the men and conveyed that after death there was no return. When the chameleon arrived and delivered the original message, people ridiculed him. Thus, the fact of death was established.

Annotation:
We try to fathom the afterlife's meaning through the mythological stories that have been narrated through generations. Conceivably, the life beyond death represents the true meaning of eternity. Is death the ultimate reality of life? Is there something beyond that?

Author

Sreelekha Chatterjee is a poet from New Delhi, India. Her poems have appeared in Madras Courier, Setu, Verse-Virtual, Timber Ghost Press, Suburban Witchcraft Magazine, The Wise Owl, Porch Literary Magazine, Orenaug Mountain Poetry Journal, Creative Flight, Pena Literary Magazine, Fevers of the Mind, and in the anthologies—Light & Dark (Bitterleaf Books, UK), Whose Spirits Touch (Orenaug Mountain Publishing, USA), and Christmas-Winter Anthology Volume 4 (Black Bough Poetry, Wales, UK), among others. Her poems and short stories have been published in over 18 countries and translated into Korean and Romanian languages.

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