tbr-22
Here is nothing that burns yellow
giving the light that raised civilisations and enabled following civilisations to see it happening.
 
Yellow, the colour of hearth, is the thing in which people see their deepest dreams.
 
But here it is dark – an unknown place in the depths of quiet continent of memory.
I am standing near a riverbank in moonlight; hills as old as moon are drowned in their own shadows. Trees are full of drowsing animals. Their tiny cold eyes glimmer now and then.
 
I rub my toes against pebbles to break the silence. And suddenly,
An inner feeling rises- I am the first man of Inca empire, of Nile. Leaves rustle, a sound comes – it is you. In agitation, I try to
conceive, realise, remember.
 
Each breath longer than an epoch, each concealing enigmatic songs, dances, wars.
Thousands of coloured faces pass by. Approaching open lands.
Passage after passage slowly I am in a pool of dim light. Awake.
 
Quarter past three. A pointless needle chasing its own shadow.
 
In the far-darkness a railway track, a head-light crossing the highway, few windows of the colony still open and lit, a sign of the running century – 21st.
 
After raising my body, I dream myself in front of the mirror,
a part of me opens the water tap, another whispers – sleep one more century, sleep one more millennium.

Amrendra Pandey

Amrendra Pandey is a Post doctoral fellow in Raman Research Institute. He received his PhD in molecular physics in 2015. He grew up in a small town of Uttar Pradesh, and currently lives in Bengaluru, India. Apart from research and literature, he is also interested in philosophy and history of modern paintings.