Maa, these are the weeks of May,
Great rollick will betime;
This is my Summer Holiday,
All whiles I will tottle and play,
And when the inflamed noon will come,
It will be Sharbat Time;
I'll further you with seed-planting,
Gather Daisy and Thyme;
Get Malas for your hymn-chanting,
Wash all seedleps till I'm panting,
And help you more and not just play,
If there is Sharbat Time;
When costermongers here will be,
Under the torrid clime;
You will give them cardamom tea,
On my head too, have your mercy,
Treat me like them- knackered and parched,
Allow my Sharbat Time;
Your flowers when droopily lie,
Are watered in noontime;
When Crows and Doves have their throats dry,
You give them water and they fly,
But best is the water I drink,
During my Sharbat Time;
The Sunlight will curvet and dance,
When Summer's at its prime;
And this is the most sweetful chance,
To see young Nature smile and prance,
Through a window inside my home;
When it is Sharbat Time.
About the poem, 'Sharbat Time': This poem is written from my childhood's perspective when I delighted in sipping 'sharbat' (the Hindi word for 'fruit juice') during my summer holidays in May. This poem explores all the occassions when I as a child used to crave this drink. I pampered, requested and convinced my mother to prepare sharbat for me. The beginning of summer and a my month of play and happiness is conveyed through this poem.
Flute Song
I heard the roving balloon man
from mellow sound of flute;
which he, full aggrouped in a bag,
would pipe about his route.
I heard him warbling varied sounds,
with palms woody and roon;
his tips, through notes, fiddled with ease--
reprising tune to tune.
I heard his clomps, when treading nigh
the home with roughy ground;
from sloshings knew, his turn about
the boggy marsh around.
I heard his songs meander there,
through countryside and quartz;
the children in wee socks and shoes,
did on his music, waltz.
I heard the tunings, dim and faint--
when fields, he'd rambling go;
no ploddings of his boots were heard,
so of his bimbling toe.
'Twas childhood joy, now long foregone,
its mirth I lived before;
and yet, his fluting, peals in me,
tho' he is heard no more.
About the poem, 'Flute Song': This poem is dedicated to the Balloon Sellers of my town who used to inform everyone of his arrival from the blowing of their flutes. This practice has perished and my town has modernized now.
Spring's Noontime and Childhood
It is a feeling, much as light,
I met in springtime days;
the income of a brief delight
in largifluous ways.
The voice of a folkster and songs like that–
parented by the midday sun,
and warmness of my settee where I sat;
all day's efforts, full-led and done;
in this session with the conjuring clime,
fled away my idle time.
I could not fathom the sounds I listened
to; came many at once; word by word
as if my courtyard of heaven glistened-
officious to me; which I heard—
a friendly calling from a vernal face
I still remember its grace.
A series of palms reclined when I winked;
touched me as if a healing wort.
I opposed not, as one by one they sinked
me in a dream-raised field, though short;
as if a rain of flowers from the skies
showered on my half-shut eyes.
Then I felt a Sylphid who, with a smile,
like a crosswind along a pass,
flew from far to my pelleted isle
from some unknown and remote grass,
and fulfilled the uberous scene I caught
by some magic, I knew not.
About the poem, 'Spring's Noontime and Childhood': This poem romanticizes a beautiful noontime of the Spring season during a particular day of my childhood time. The feeling I felt was very lightsome and soothing like a folkster (folksinger) singing a song under the midday Sun. After the completion of my chores, I sat on my settee (sofa) and listened to the various sounds (of birds, traffic, people chatting etc).
Shamik Banerjee is a poet and poetry reviewer from the North-Eastern belt of India. He loves taking long strolls and spending time with his family. His deep affection with Solitude and Poetry provides him happiness.
