Have You Been There! Poem by AMITAVA MAZUMDAR

Everyone lurking out
With deathly silence
The sun like an unchaste wife
Appears on the threshold

And the trees all over
Pine birch spruce
Swaying with the river

Have you been there?

A monk breeds a monk
The rock-built temples
In the hills atop
Bells gonged at every sunrise
Candles inflamed Buddha
Sitting cross-legged
Like a paleolithic human

Have you been there?

Birds crisps air at
Their small dry mouths
A melancholy poet sits
And alchemise sorrows
Fire nestles in the realm

Have you been there?

The prose burns
The words turns into ashes
From it an obscure
Borns
Would you like to be there?