‘The Heart Remembers’: Two Poems by Neera Kashyap
Photo: Karan Madhok
‘The light sputtered back; her frame froze. / A crow sliced over her head, cawing noisily, / flapping free of the remains of the day.’
Barefoot and wild
From my veranda I saw her familiar figure
walk with slow regal steps in the park,
in the pooling dark her hair a shock of white,
Avoiding walkers, children, maids, dogs.
The fluorescent light sputtered, went out.
A caw broke the silence
She sat on a bench, took off her shoes;
walked slowly, regally on fresh, wet grass.
Head darting, she hunched into a run, touching a bench, another on the far end.
The light sputtered back; her frame froze.
A crow sliced over her head, cawing noisily,
flapping free of the remains of the day.
*
Where is the evidence?
A mole burrows deep into hard soil
scattering earth on the surface
into neat molehills.
Intense pain ramifies into deposits
of memory, not neat but uneven.
The heart remembers the child’s
cry for assurance—unmet
in the uneven darkness. Still the heart
beats.
The mole returns through its vertical tunnel
surveys the deposits
now visible—clear, neat.
It sees the hole, now home,
as deep as was the pain. Still
the heart beats.
***
Neera Kashyap is a poet, short fiction writer, book reviewer and essayist. Her work has appeared in several national and international literary journals and anthologies. Her debut collections of poetry, The art of unboxing’(Red River Press) and short fiction, Cracks in the Wall (Niyogi Books) were published in 2025. You can find her on Twitter: @NeeraK7 and Instagram: @neerakashyap.
