The Morning Is Today: A Sestina

The postma🍌n brought all messages these days with a clot.

I💛 waited long at my window thinking: really, but real🍰ly?

Wasn't it always some sﷺort of a premonition of a strange mixing

of the heart's ache with our blood'ꦺ☂s tone eternally lilting and dulcet?

So, I open each packe✅t carefully wrapped, imagining if it's another trick:

Shah൩id's country dwells in love but any moment there can be bad cess.

Once it falls apart we know, on𓄧ce there is a deep wide cess-

pool where ideas drown,꧂ th♎e letters will lose crispness, turn a clot.

Who shall we write to of our despair and hurt? F൩or my heart plays a trick

to convince me💮 that Baramullah and Barpeta are the same, really.

The lanes from where you wave. Then all that remainᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚs is a dull and dulcet

ri✃ng of longing.🌼 Will I see you tonight on my screen, our tears mixing?

But the Internet is down and out, you say, tears andꦜ words mixing,

and we count hours. We thi﷽nk of the sky, that wide berth sans any cess.

Thankful that there's love in the little stamp☂s-boo🌠k we have, all dulcet

and🐷 heady with memory. We still can send letters, in our hearts' clot

whe❀re our pen dip. It's still Faiz's dream🍨 morning, not night really,

you say. Oh yes, I🍨 know, my beloved! Just democracy playing a🌱 trick!

While we discuss ⛦dream and delirium we now don't call it a trick.

Have yo🧸u seen the newspaper this morning, I want to say, mixing

sღome caution because we want to cling close to love and light really,

gilted flush of sea꧑s, new leaves, summer mangoes – none 👍with a cess.

All lush wit🐟h our ꦦdesire, from Kashmir to Kanyakumari, a lull and a clot

so sweetly lumped in our days. Even 🧔sounds of 🧜police sirens seem dulcet!

Today, just today is our time. Our tim🉐e to sing loud and set that dulcet

tone: Mujhse pehli see muhabbat mere mehboܫob na mang! Smash all trick-

sters in their face, wring out 🎃all pain, the combat boots, nurse the wound clot

and bring home the real and the virtual, 🤪the letters and kisses all mixing.

Do we care, do we really care if t🔜he state will clamp onꦅ happiness, put a cess,

steᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ⁤⁤⁤⁤ᩚ𒀱ᩚᩚᩚal our hard-earned money, shut our women in, kill all men? Do we, really?

Then come now, look how the stars shine on🦹 an🍰d be thankful really.

In the blinking blue of the screen, yoജur face, the memory of your dulcet

v꧙oice that the ethe🅠r carries singing the Jamaica Farewell. No cess

on our demands, dreams and destinations. We'll unravel a🍬ll sordid trick

from Kokrajhar to Konkan, the ballots and 🔯the pellets. No, no mixing

our sorrow with the lightstruck love we've caught with our passi💞on's clot.

The letters are on the🅘ir way, signed with our blood's clot,

the horizon is ris🔯ing ahead with summer swans heady with mixing

the wine of sun and our flight. Ours the 🔴magic wand, the winning trick.

First published by Haoajan webzine

Nabina Das is a poet and writer.