NUKA: AN ELEGIAC ODE. (FOR ANUSHKA RAMCHURAN,
SISTER SPIRIT)
Anushka, where are you now?
I imagine you in some savannah
A few lions by your side
and a tent, with somebody smoking
a pipe in it
listening for the call
of the Shepherd your heart beat for
no longer bound by the ravages of your illness
but free to loiter around and loll
on the grass
and write for all
your words that left a piquant charm
on your readers, often holding them in thrall
We have not forgotten
We still go on
reading those words
and asking you to call
Listen in to us today as we write
of you and on your poems
in the midst of your looking after your loved ones
from above
and your intercession for them
and smile indulgently at us all
for a brief while
as we pay tribute to the cosmic
mystery that births and takes away
before we have of someone our fill
awaiting in our turn the unfolding
of knowing after we die
if anything's left or not
and we will meet you again
or not
But this we know, Nuka
here your words, art, poems and conversations remain
Your book of verses with us remains
and your Lover whose name you were not
ashamed to confess
who in return has done that for you too
keeping your name and flame alive still
even here, now, today, thereby.
Ampat Koshy: He teaches in a college as Assistant Professor in Jazan, Saudi Arabia. He is the author of books like Art of Poetry, Wrighteings: In Media Res, Figs, Allusions to Simplicity (poetry), and co-author of Wake Up India: Essays for Our Times with Dr Bina Biswas and co-editor of The Significant Anthology with Reena Prasad and Michele Baron etc. He also runs The Signifcant League and has instituted the Reuel International Prize for Literature. He is a poet and critic and fiction writer of renown in India and abroad plus a Pushcart Prize Poetry Nominee of 2012. His Ph.D was on Samuel Beckett and his thesis was later published as Samuel Beckett's English Poetry: Transcending the Roots of Resistance in Language. He has also co-edited Inklinks and Umbilical Chords.