Gopal Lahiri

The Gatherings

Some moments are words enslaved in a thesaurus 
they become a whip, an evening storm.

Some moments linger like a summer breeze
they speak in only sky-blue tongues.

Some moments grow only in liminal spaces
each space is placed like an uneven surface.

Some moments reflect elegies and epigrams
while others may come into a quieter focus.

Some moments reshape and excavate skulls
and reach us not in disguise but as themselves.

Some moments tell us to bear what is unbearable
what all of us bear in each other’s light.

Some moments are like standing in a gathering
at the street corner, but no conversation takes place.

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Breath

I call forward through the morning light
words spooling in my mind, intact, beautiful,
I feel silence at the edges of solitude.

Shadows shift on the other side of the street
summoning lies beyond the thresholds
I want to cross that in this thinning time.

Then a silence that tastes of the winter moon
where something invisible
is building a bridge
without needing words,
from inside me to inside you.

And think of that night when
I breathe for the first time
with your lungs.

that night is now like a capsule 
without an edge
soft enough to hurt
strong enough to last.

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