A tribute to God’s own country, Kerala in short verses, inspired by the memories of our honeymoon almost 14 years back. This series of short poetic vignettes are part of the author’s book ‘Woman And Her Muse’ (Authorspress, 2016)
Kovalam
1.
Gentle flowers of honeymooning
Kovalam, the escapade, love gushing, maddening, insistent.
Lust for life, pervading.
2.
Roaring waves, sea-washed shores,
Breaths mingling, opening doors, salty tears.
Newlyweds, silent, soft whisperings.
3.
The language of love
Stumbling on savory romances, bitter heartbreaks.
A liquid realm of dreams.
4.
Temple prayers resound.
Silences, intertwined with clasped hands.
Padmanabhaswamy, amorous sculpture-gods.
5.
Show me how to float
In your foam. I’ll slip away in
My grimy memories.
6.
The shoreline beckons.
The sand beneath our feet,
The dirt road of our matrimony.
7.
Man and wife, entangling, disentangled.
Divinity of hearts in sync, devouring the
Rocky promontories, coconut groves.
Allepey
8.
A solemn promise, making love
Allepey, bride’s feet dipped in lush backwaters
Crescent moon, a houseboat.
9.
Old piers extend into sea.
Yellow flowers dangling in bridal hair
Kissed by ardent beau.
10.
Shankuamugham, the breeze grows wild
“Enchantress”, her human lover calls her.
A beach love, solidified.
11.
Fishermen set out, the morning sea
A medley of wants, ephemeral, speeding past
Imposing sojourners.
12.
The city, tangled beads
Of humans, temples, marketplaces, miracles.
‘My cup runneth over.’
13.
Shimmering waterways, sailing obstructed,
Rainfall, spilling over a quaint houseboat
my vermilion rains.
Vembanad Lake on the Alleppey side
14.
The palm fringed narrow canal
Saw us enraptured, flowing in the cosmos,
Migrating bird bodies fluttered.
15.
Kumarakam, a new bride dancing
Tranquility, a momentary luxury, finds its closure.
We return, poetry obliterates.
Notes
* Kovalam: A beach and coastal town in the southern state of Kerala, India, a prime destination for tourists. Kovalam means a grove of coconut trees.
* Padmanabhaswamy: A south-Indian temple located in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, named after Lord Vishnu.
* Alleppey: A tourist site in Kerala, best known for houseboat cruises along the rustic Kerala backwaters, a network of tranquil canals and lagoons.
* Shankumugham: Another tranquil beach in Thiruvananthapuram district of Kerala.
* Alappuzha: Another name for Allepey, the backwater destination
* Kumarakam: An island and a bird sanctuary in the city of Kottayam, Kerala.
Lopamudra Banerjee is an acclaimed author, poet, translator, editor with nine solo books and six anthologies in fiction, nonfiction and poetry. She has received the Journey Awards (First Place category winner) for her memoir Thwarted Escape: An Immigrant’s Wayward Journey, the International Reuel Prize for Translation (2016) and also International Reuel Prize for Poetry (2017) and other honors. Her poetry has been published in renowned platforms including Life in Quarantine, the Digital Humanities Archive of Stanford University. Her collaborative poetry collection with Priscilla Rice titled We Are What We Are (Black Eagle Books, 2022) has been 1st Prize Winner at New York Book Festival 2024 and her translation of a famous Bengali historical/biographical novel titled The Bard and His Sister-in-Law (Black Eagle Books, 2023) has received Honorary Mention at Paris Book Festival and Hollywood Book Festival 2024. Recently, her debut Bengali collection of poetry Draupadi Theke Nijoswi—Amra has been launched in Kolkata and also in the Dallas Public Library, Texas, with a performance of a psychological drama ‘Mukhomukhi’, in which she has made her foray as a playwright.
All Posts of Lopamudra Banerjee
Hope you enjoyed reading...
... we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading and supporting our creative, informative and analytical posts than ever before. And yes, we are firmly set on the path we chose when we started... our twin magazines Learning and Creativity and Silhouette Magazine (LnC-Silhouette) will be accessible to all, across the world.
We are editorially independent, not funded, supported or influenced by investors or agencies. We try to keep our content easily readable in an undisturbed interface, not swamped by advertisements and pop-ups. Our mission is to provide a platform you can call your own creative outlet and everyone from renowned authors and critics to budding bloggers, artists, teen writers and kids love to build their own space here and share with the world.
Got a poem, story, musing or painting you would like to share with the world? Send your creative writings and expressions to editor@learningandcreativity.com
Learning and Creativity publishes articles, stories, poems, reviews, and other literary works, artworks, photographs and other publishable material contributed by writers, artists and photographers as a friendly gesture. The opinions shared by the writers, artists and photographers are their personal opinion and does not reflect the opinion of Learning and Creativity- emagazine. Images used in the posts (not including those from Learning and Creativity's own photo archives) have been procured from the contributors themselves, public forums, social networking sites, publicity releases, free photo sites such as Pixabay, Pexels, Morguefile, etc and Wikimedia Creative Commons. Please inform us if any of the images used here are copyrighted, we will pull those images down.
Love it