Evanescence

White canvases in the noon

Hanging from the cloth-lines

A peg in her lips, pegs in my little palms

Spot a floral-print petticoat

Follow it around

Long black hair, streaks of red

Glowing purple in the evening sun

Blowing in the wind

Stroking a dandelion

Holding on for dear life

Red scars, purple bruises

Wet tears, funny tasting

Pain-stricken, I lay in bed

Dreams find me, when I am awake

A blanket spread over my head

Years fade out of existence

A bad dream, into the white void

Slowly wake up to find

An empty cloth-line

No pegs in my hands

Naked dandelion buds

Dead wind, still air

No sun, no flower scented hair

The only remnant of us

Are dark blue scars

I hear a hymn in the distance

Through a broken windowpane

So tell me now, again

Where did we go wrong, Ma,

If our story never began?

Copyright Delilah Das 

What Must Happiness be?

(Captured in my mother's garden): 
Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.
- Robert Frost

'Tis nothing but to see ants rise and fall,

Meet and talk and run amok,

To sit in the shade and watch a day

In the life of a roadside rock.

To hear the green beetles with the

Pretty red specks pulsate and say:

Watch if you will; there’s work to be done

Till the end of this nice long day.

To watch a strange bird look about

And wonder what it thinks,

Of the shallow rain and the little grains

And muddy puddles for drinks.

And eagerly welcome the wind as though

It has brought your mail,

For the mailman may or may not arrive

But the wind will never fail.

To see birth, death, the hunter and

Hunted, ceaselessly persist,

And wasps that feed off yellow leaves

That sunshine once had kissed.

'Tis nothing but at end of day to smell

Like rain soaked dirt,

'Tis what happiness must be, 'tis the

Fluttering in your heart.

Copyright Delilah Das 

There's Home

There’s a place somewhere I’ve never been,

There’s a house, a street I’ve never seen,

Where a little robin sings for me

So I may find my way.

There’s someplace somewhere I truly long,

A place called home where I belong,

A small backyard where I wrote my song

That I hope to sing one day.

There’s peace somewhere I’ve never known,

And a million memories of my own,

Where there’s a beating heart, there’s a hope

That I may find my way.

Though dismantled our world may be,

Where-on-earth you go is home to me,

When the day is here that I long to see,

All I ask for is to stay.

There are roads to go and dreams to see,

Yet it’s only home where I long to be,

Oh may the robin’s song soon find me

  So I may find my way.


Copyright Delilah Das 

Mirror

What’s silver and shows us our vessels?

What’s silver and knows not our depth?

What’s silver and often misunderstood-?

For it has a secret well kept.

What’s silver and often accused

Of shallow perception and ruthless honesty?

What’s silver and often charged

For its flawed insight and superficiality?

Who is this culprit we believe we know,

That we claim is silver for it appears so?

Yet here we claim to see beyond

 The superficial—what an irony, though!

What’s silver and shows us its vessel?

What’s silver whose depth is unseen-?

By eyes that claim flawless profundity,

What’s silver but shades of green?


Copyrighted by Delilah Das

The Light is Going Out

They tell me to look,

But the darkness is too bright,

So I squint my eyes,

And look for a light.

They tell me to hear,

But the silence is too loud,

Though a mirror shines at me,

The light is going out.

They tell me to feel,

But the rawness is too dead,

There’s not much space to think,

For thoughts have filled my head.

They tell me to see,

But they do not tell me how,

The moon though once was bright,

The light is going out.

They tell me to move on,

From what, and to where shall I go?

For the road that will take me

Is but made of snow.

They tell me the sun

At dawn will the sky shroud,

But when the day meets its end,

The light’s still going out.

They tell me it deludes—

The scar that blinds my eyes,

There is but water within

A frozen lake of ice.

They tell me to smile

When life’s sent forth to sprout,

But smile as bright I might

The light is going out.


Copyrighted by Delilah Das