issue 22: winter 2020
Night Has Fallen: Four Poems
Night Has Fallen
Night has fallen.
When last I saw them,
the trees stood shapeless
against the sky.
Elsewhere, it is still evening.
The shops are open
and a woman’s buying eggs,
or watching The Two Popes
in the middle of which
she’ll fall asleep.
The mind wanders
and I bring it back
to this room,
its six upholstered chairs, the books
on the floor, the reading lamp,
the Afghan carpet frayed
at the edges.
Under the Dillenia
Under the dillenia,
a rustle in the leaves,
or was it your reflection
in the waters of the lake.
Fire Wall
They grow like plants,
the kitchen walls.
You tear one down,
another takes root
in soil rich with black
manure, the leaf
litter of the forest floor.
Of copper, iron, and
stainless steel, tropical
vessels dully shine
on trees. The dark walls
burn. The decades
run out. The knob’s on
high, sometimes on low.
It’s never on off.
The Things of This World
The things of this world:
Garden tools
under the staircase,
aprons hanging
on doorknobs,
someone grinding spices
on a saddle quern,
someone trimming
a hedge. There’s no exit
to this mausoleum
we’ve entered through
different doors.
Arvind Krishna Mehrotra's The Book of Indian Essays: Two Hundred Years of English Prose is forthcoming from Black Kite-Hachette later this year. Among his recent books are a translation (with Sara Rai) of Vinod Kumar Shukla's stories Blue Is Like Blue (HarperCollins); Selected Poems and Translations (NYRB), shortlisted for the Derek Walcott Prize in poetry; and a volume of essays, Translating the Past and Other Literary Histories (Permanent Black). He lives in Dehra Dun.