2 poems by Amlanjyoti Goswami

The Car from Bijoynagar

It was a lovely Derby Bentley

A grey-haired beauty

That had seen its time.

The talk of town

Driven with pride by an English gentleman

Who for some reason stayed back

With his family – wife, child and dog

Long after the arms of history had crossed

Our absent town.

They say the dog survived

When the car drove

Into the river in spate

A swollen swarming river

That had come to the town’s doorstep.

Unknown to the river, they were driving

For a family picnic

But the river had travelled the world

In just one night.

When the car drove right in

The river welcomed them

With his long sprawling arms.

Only the dog survived, they said

When I peeked from the back seat and found

No one standing there.

The Racoon

In that old backyard

We kept furniture no longer needed.

A racoon would visit at night

Her glowing eyes searching for food.

By then the barbecue would be burnt out

And we would watch from the silence of a window

In the dark room downstairs

Curtains flapping to let the moon in.

But the racoon stayed undisturbed in her forage

For new fodder, for all things wild

Beneath the rubble of our belonging.

Some of us were from India, some from Italy

Others from Spain, Brazil and France

But the racoon was a local, a neighbour of sorts

The kind who would come when the time was right

At other times stray away from sight.

It was a time when I rediscovered my country

Reading the dictionary for the meaning of pinata

Drinking mulled wine for the first time.

The racoon came in the same breath, in my imagination

As a friendly neighbour who didn’t like being disturbed.

But her eyes and long tail have stayed with me

A part of me left behind in that old wooden house

Demolished now to make way for modern glass

A building standing tall, without any signs of wild

Announcing itself in the global state of things

With salads and pastas and new faces laughing

At the talk of racoons

On delicious full moon nights

Scanning the wild with the feral eyes of binoculars.

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Amlanjyoti Goswami’s new book of poetry, A Different Story, has just been published by

Poetrywala. He has previously written two widely reviewed books, River Wedding and Vital Signs, published by Poetrywala. River Wedding was shortlisted for the Sahitya Akademi award.