Indian Summer

The map of India burns
with flames of passion
when fire is set
against mid-day. You search
the city, lost
in a mirage. The sun fumes.
There is only heat and dust.

The song of a Koel coos
from engines and smoke pipes.
Find yourself in the arms
of summer; a roasting
season
where the smell lingers
of flesh and blood
burning alive.

Buffaloes rest
on muddy waters, and stray dogs
on leakage from gutters.
Summer shadows move
and float upon baked soil.

The wings of a fan persist,
unexhausted. Look out!
Through the iron grills
on the tongue of a dragon
is the boiling sun,
while, locked up, you dream
of rain and thunder.

Summer Hill Devadars

(Shimla 19 June 2001)

They stand.
Tall.
Mute.
Now
since hundred years
bearing witness
with silent hills
that will not speak

the encroached footsteps
of an intimate enemy
where the cold
shadow of death has shaped
over the deep valleys,
they stand.
Tall.
Silent.
Now
since hundred years
making paths
through hills
that will not speak

the in-between lines
of unwritten mutilated stories.
They stand.
Unmoved.
Aged.
the mountain of pain in silence
that will not speak
the forest of untold tales
in white fog of Shimla
covering the body that died screaming
freedom.
The birth pang of India
The stand :
now
a mute witness
of histories.

Vihang A Naik was born in Surat, Gujarat on September 2, 1969. He is India’s contemporary poet writing in English. His poems have appeared in such literary journals as Indian Literature : A Sahitya Akademi Bi-Monthly Journal, Kavya Bharati, POESIS: A Journal of Poetry Circle, Mumbai, The Journal of The Poetry Society (India), The Journal of Indian Writing In English, The Journal of Literature and Aesthetics, The Poetry Chain among other significant journals. He is educated from The M.S. University of Baroda with Philosophy, Indian and English Literature. Four collections of his poetry have been published: Poetry Manifesto: New & Selected Poems (2010), Making A Poem (2004), City Times and Other Poems (1993). His Gujarati collection of poems include Jeevangeet (Gujarati Poems) published by Navbharat Sahitya Mandir (Ahmedabad) in 2001, dedicated to the cause of victims of Gujarat Earthquake of January 26, 2001. He also translates poetry written in the Gujarati language into English, including his own Gujarati language poems.