The Glow Cold and the Fire Die

By Anish kanjilal

The Glow Cold and the Fire Die

The shadow gulps the light and the cold

quaffs the heat,

The ocean eats the land and Landowners eat the meat

and this rolls on.

***

In the core of the deep dark forest,

On the plinth of a ferny floor,

Shrouded with mist,

A solitary toothless cavern awaits in dotage...

Lashed at times by a torrent,

Who feeds on loads of earth…

A queer gust puffs the grasses

and then a sudden tremor, a quake,

Stones crumble and pelt down the cavity roof…

and one breaks down opening a fossil

***

A monsoon frozen in time,

Rain soaked wood… a whiff rising

Sluggish murky evening, sipping on the day

Ideal time for the glitters to twinkle the way

Blue Green Yellow and Red

a lease with a rainbow.

The language of light, the mode of love,

A dance to life… a symphony well

wove…

Among the glints…a honey fed firefly,

Charmed by a single slow pulse,

An array of seductive arrows of Cupid

— A Photuris in disguise,

The mimicker dupes and connives

and the love laden naive

responds to the summons….

But the gift of the master chemist

saves his day.

***

Just a narrow escape, ponders the firefly,

Never to repeat it, resolves the shy.

And then a queer gust, suddenly, puffs the grasses

Lifts the fly

And thrusts it into the toothless hollow…

The firefly wakes up from a trance,

Left dazzled, gasping at another milky way,

by another glittering dance.

Among the many that twinkled, there was one

Wearing a robe of blue

Pulsating and throbbing — a glowworm...

Soon the bolt of love struck the firefly,

to impress; the Big Dipper

tries a fishhook manoeuvre,

Glides down the vacuum

An acrobatic diving,

Rotation, skimming and sliding.

Lucibufagins a box of chocolates,

A unique gift and the glowworm turns

Scarlet…

Ornamented with spittle she constructs

a ladder of drool,

the firefly responds and is enveloped

in a spool.

The curtain closes the dance is over,

The firefly in oscillation and the glowworm

a drover.

***

Fossilised in time an obituary written

Nipped and devoured, end of smitten…

‘’The gust has rotten and cosmos a reflection

Slumbers respite and myriad a deception.

Half a moon awaits dissected…for

there would be more resections.

Silence stabs sound and all a mute

Every romance may not always be cute

Glow heightens and the fire

suppressed in soot

The fly in a liplock with a worm

for life is a bizarre toot.”

By Anish kanjilal