Twilight as a poem is so scenic and panoramic, so picturesque and pictorial and so reminiscent of the pale light falling against the backdrop of the hospital window panes, reflecting upon the children’s ward with some mothers sitting bereaved, disconsolate and desolate, but the light unmindful of it all. A natural poem, it shows the things differently, the usual course of the twilight glowing and glimmering to retreat. To see it otherwise, it hints towards a discourse taking us to the world of Nature and the world of Man, standing at variance with.

Twilight

An orange flare
lights the pale panes of the hospital
in a final wish of daylight.
It’s not yet dark.

In the children’s ward
under a mother’s face,
the dead, always so young.
Water startles in the river’s throat.

Its cry:
a plea to share in its curse?

Somewhere, this twilight shall fall
and hide the whiteness of jasmines
about to bloom.

Newly-lit lamps
in the houses across the street
make me look out at the wet August evening
that holds up the vast unknown
in such small delicate hands.

Somewhere the same twilight falls upon and hides in the whiteness of jasmines about to bloom. Again the images and scenes shift to elsewhere with his shifting bird’s eye view. Newly-lit lamps in the houses across the street take him to the wet August evening holding the clue of the vast unknown. Means, now say you? Who can but say to him about rains and rites? Why the rains? Why the rites? Why is the twilight flashing? Why the mothers sitting mournful?

Twilight as a poem is like Dawn poems, the poems of Silence and Quietude, of Morning, Evening and Nightfall. Twilight as a poem shows nature is almost the same. Natural phenomena will keep happening as always.

An orange flare, lights, the pale panes of the hospital, in a final wish of daylight,  not yet dark, etc. add to the first stanza of the poem.

In the children’s ward, under a mother’s face, the dead, always so young, etc. from the second stanza add to the story differently and making it solemn, somber and serious. 

The same twilight caresses it the jasmines and its buds waiting to bloom and spread fragrance. How do the buds flower into unseen and unsaid? It is a mystery.

As the scenes and sights change so do the fickle moods of the poet and his poetic reflection, a physics man writing poetry for literature’s sake.

Image (c) RK