Taking A Leaf Poem by Procyon Mukherjee

The forest is making a turn here

Along the dirt road, the briar will stop you

To take a step or two beyond

The sky will only peep between some leaves

That have forgotten to hold together

The deepening green


I am not stopping

Just taking a leaf out of the journey

This is a time to look

With the eyes that are more acquired

And I am not directing,

Leaving it, ushering


With the thicket or the vines around you

The Blue Morpho is making its sweep

Among the grass and the droplets

Some colours at this age will revive

The violet among them receding

In the sounds of fireflies


I am about to touch the orchid

Ensconced in the branches

It is trying to live on borrowed light

Of the sun and the sliding rain

Some of life is about taking

More than giving


I am like that grasshopper looking up

Or the ladybugs, beetles or the tropical ants

Someone will make way or predate

To the rising waffle of mobility

Survival will take shape

In the warm sands of time


Nightfall will raise the curtains to the

Wings of bats, flapping leaves

Whispering the approach of an unknown

Creeper, caressing wind will only know

The demons within me,

Reticent verbs will rise


To the misty morning, slow on the earth

The feathers and chirping will revive

The first lights on the bough

Softly through the veil

Ignorance will settle on an epitaph