Sampurna Chattarji
the paradox box is flipping out, as usual.
and you,
you’re keeping your head.
as usual.
that’s where it all comes together
the animal farm of ideas
delectably yours.
wouldn’t do to lose it.
the double helix is hiccupping.
it happens to the best of us.
there’s a puzzling phase.
who are the best?
who’s us?
the juke box is telling stories
in a beer bar in south Bombay.
feed it fifty-rupee coins.
don’t mind the loops.
in time, your story will come.
your story. never a-
verse to slipping side-
ways.
your mind.
strange attractor.
magnetizing
blue
paper
very small coffee cups filled with
very strong coffee
bicycle
graffiti
river
train timings
such things are not
unheard of.
it’s taken its time to grow.
three years to be exact.
slowness has been its sap.
it might be a vine, not a tree.
find it a staff to twine around.
and longing?
what do you do
when it comes?
in story your time will come.
bearing giants and pinwheels
sycamores and shibboleths.
it will be mythic.
no one will
write it down.
it was the hottest summer.
the sternest metals melted.
lingering in the greenhouse
a tactician’s move.
who knows if this poem
will need glass to shelter it
from the cold
will need heat to keep its
tropical heart beating
will need a bright
artificial sun?
take it, transplant it where you will.
it’s yours.
A poem by Sampurna Chattarji for Nils Röller, October 2015