Half light

Dusk waits on the margins

of the dying day to slowly scroll

mellow light, dimming the dusty harshness;

ushers in trees and the sudden

babble of birds streaming down like

a thousand waterfalls falling from the sky;

a babble drowned by the honk of traffic

returning home to nest uncertainly.

A pause

in the day's dusty harshness

and the creeping restlessness of night.

The mellow ache of a dim memory,

fading to a glow worm

searching, searching....

for a mate

for itself

in light

neither harsh

nor restless.

2

A weaver's song

She thought of what he had said:

she was the leading lady of her own story.

Not mere wife, in-law, mother, daughter

though each a yarn to weave a story.

Hers.

Strong lines of warp, the stable frame

soft lines of weft, binding changing yarn.

Sometimes a web, a rusting iron cage

sometimes luminous milkweed silk, floating.

Yarn moved to the margins

as she wove.

She was the leading lady of her story

she remembered;

learning to see that

every story shifted

in a bewildering chimera....

till she could harness

the warp's tension,

the heddle's rhythm

in a natural movement

that centred her universe.

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Neera Kashyap is a poet, short fiction writer, book reviewer and essayist. Her work has appeared in several national and international literary journals and anthologies.