‘To the Evening Breeze’ and Other Poetry by Shamik Banerjee

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To the Evening Breeze

When I unbolt the terrace door,
He enters quickly, greeting me
With kisses on my cheeks and hair
As if a friend who’d longed to see
My face for countless centuries.
As night begins to blacken more
And, ray by ray, the moonlight flees,
I settle on the window chair
And grab a book. Then he comes too
And reads the tale before I do.

He loves to ring the bright wind chimes,
Flick draperies, skim by each leaf
Of our Neem tree that waits all day
For his cool touch of sweet relief.
But out of everything, he likes
The top floor’s balcony. He climbs
There, chitchats with the plants, or strikes
The hanging clothes—a rare ballet
For father, ma, and me to view;
A lustre finds our lips anew.

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For Angel L. Villanueva

By fate or happenstance, I’ve found
A poet of the western land
Whose lines are poignant and profound!
So blessed the pen gripped by his hand,
For what he crafts are not mere words
But doors to dreamlike, sweet domains
Where flocks of softly-warbling birds
Produce sweet, polyphonic strains.
Whatever subject builds his verse:
Love, heartache, seasons, or regret,
Each work’s a rock-free stream traversed—
A journey one will not forget.
What’s marvellous is that he bears
A name that means ‘a herald of
The Lord’, and somehow, I’m aware
That he’s a man of endless love.
But though we’re seated seas apart
And haven’t confabbed over tea,
I think I’ve wandered through his heart
And known him for eternity!

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Shamik Banerjee resides in Assam, India with his parents and works for a local firm. His poems have appeared in Fevers of the Mind, Lothlorien Poetry Journal, and Westward Quarterly, among others, and some of his poems are forthcoming in Dreich and The Ekstasis Review, to name a few.