Gossip
The old gong in the monastery
calls out much before dawn. There is a smell
of incense
and raw alum in the metallic hum
A narrow track hurriedly goes up the valley,
almost groggily,
crosses the foggy pine forest and divides itself
at the over-elaborate gate of the monastery,
as if, it is confused
Then it goes up straight to more forest above
leaving the other half
at the monastery entrance
Life starts early here,
much before the first hen picks up its voice
from the damp haystack
and looks for the sun . The young monks
in scarlet robes
pile up in monastery’s oblong courtyard
like layers of red paint dripping
from the monastery building
I sit on a boulder near Phub Tshering’s orange orchard
and watch the quiet valley down
with the monastery on top of a hill. In the middle, I search
a neutral spot
to listen to the fresh gossips among the silent monastery building ,
the road and the gong
about the castaway winter
roaming in the woods like a lost monk
About the poet:
Sekhar Banerjee is a poet and a Pushcart Award nominee for 2021. The Fern-gatherers’ Association (Red River, 2021) is his latest collection of poems. He has been published in Indian Literature, The Bitter Oleander, Ink Sweat and Tears, Muse India, Bengaluru Review , Kitaab, Better Than Starbucks, The Tiger Moth Review, Thimble Literary Magazine and elsewhere. He has a monograph on an Indo-Nepal border tribe to his credit. He is a former Secretary of Paschimbanga Bangla Akademi under the Government of West Bengal. He likes mobile photography, tea and remote places. He lives in Kolkata, India.