‘The Feel of Being Forgotten’: Two Poems by Gopi Kottoor
Photo: Karan Madhok
Poetry: ‘And why after that sun-dusked rainbow / Turned our eyes colour-blind // Why is it that your footprints in the dark, / Still lead me to that secret altar’
Home
These are the lessons
One learns. Not by faith, not by chance,
But all on purpose,
Taking it in your stride,
jumping the big divide,
And falling. And looking around
For things you had seen before,
For a light to bench the darkness,
For a little animal voice in the shade,
And all that fragrance
Leading to
No more flowers.
Once again, to touch the feel of being forgotten,
to fall simply as a leaf that says all about being,
From green to brown, turning brittle crackling like a mirror
Into its own broken laughter.
These are the lessons,
one learns without asking.
Shapes that breath us into illusions
Before the disappearing act.
And now lost, and to be found again,
Taking that unknown river
To what you think is home.
*
After
Why is it that after
The night sea has receded,
Why after the seabirds
Have flown away into the unknown
And why after that sun-dusked rainbow
Turned our eyes colour-blind
Why is it that your footprints in the dark,
Still lead me to that secret altar
Burning with all its stars
That know nothing
Of burning?
***
Gopi Kottoor's poems have won prizes of the British Council in India. They have appeared in Acumen, Eunoia Journal, Nth Position, Orbis, The Rising Phoenix, Verse, Seattle, Indian Literature, and others. His work has been featured in anthologies including They have featured in anthologies of repute as Converse, Best Indian Poetry, The Bloodaxe Book of Indian Poetry, Both Sides of the Sky, and more.
