The winter mornings witness it all—the mist,
the rise and fall of the stars, drowsy metaphors
an exile man with the face of a taper and spill.
On the edge of clouds, to the endless shining line
the twilight is urging me to shut eyes and concede,
Why someday the words refuse to come?
Yellow windows from a red brick house drop
letters on the pavement and ask the wind
to give it to the hands of an ashram monk.
He tries to say something but his voice
cannot be heard in the street noise
The boulevard is still wet with the fog.
Those images float again in my sleep,
someone plucks a hurricane and lights up
the face, finding a way to paradisal dreams.
Gopal Lahiri is a bilingual poet, critic, editor, writer and translator with 33 books published, including eight solo/jointly edited books. His poetry and prose are published across more than one hundred fifty journals and anthologies globally. His poems are translated in 18 languages and published in 16 countries. He was nominated for Pushcart Prize for poetry in 2021 and Best of the Nets for poetry in 2025. He has been conferred the First Jayanta Mahapatra National Award in literature in 2024 for his significant contribution to Indian English Writing. His collection of poems Alleys are Filled with Future Alphabets has received the Pan Asian Ukiyoto award. His Selected Poems was published by CLASSIX, New Delhi, recently.