The Arboreal Alchemist

By Somsubhra Banerjee

"In the gentle embrace of nature, we often find moments that elude our

hurried gaze, secrets that only the patient observer can truly grasp.

"The Arboreal Alchemist: Poetry through Nature's Eyes"" is a poetry

collection that invites readers to slow down, to listen closely, and to

feel deeply the voices of nature. In these

• Language: English
• Publisher: Ukiyoto Publishing
• Release date: Sep 22, 2023
• ISBN: 9789361727597

Book preview

Staple Myself

I wish to staple myself to a passing cloud,

those cirruses, those cumulonimbuses.

Hi there, floating cloud, will you take me with you?

where will you like to go, waving person?

wherever that you plan to float to,

but I don’t have a fixed plan, I just meander

through places,

the boisterous winds help me along, and I float

my own pace,

slowly, slowly.

that’s fine with me, take me along, here, hold my hand.

I wish to staple myself to a passing cloud,

travel across nations, and places, slowly, flowing,

and rain down someday on the parched earth,

who are eagerly waiting for those drops,

and arouse the petrichor throughout the infinite landscape.

Leaves and Trees

Twisting and twirling back in time, those leaves,

slowly following back the pathway through which it fell,

the meandering pathway created by the boisterous winds,

its colour, changing from yellow, orange, and red, to green,

the crooked, warped shape, slowly unfurling back to being

straight,

pecking the cheek of the branch where it had stayed for a long,

long time,

the bare tree, smiling, tears in its eyes.

What if we could put the leaves back on trees?

The Falling leaves, and Us

The falling leaves, twist and turn in the slightest of

winds,

searching for that perfect place,

someone’s hair, cusps of hands, park benches, an open book,

just like us, meandering through life, searching, going places,

seeking for that perfect place,

mother’s lap, a tight, long hug, a kiss on forehead, intertwined

fingers,

that perfect feeling that’d seek us back.

Questions,Trifling Questions

Why do the yellow leaves get so curious to fall down,

while the green ones wish to stay on for some more time?

What does the blob of smoke from the high-rising chimneys, talk

in secret with the clouds?

"Can I not be like you, floating, freely?"

Do the butterflies know about the beautiful designs on their wings?

can they tell me who creates those?

To whom does spring give its green clothes?

does it store them in its closet for next year, dry-cleaned?

How does the snow become the rain, and the rain transforms into

cotton snow,

do the trees know, or they don’t want to tell you?

Do the flowers know it’s the same bird that has come for sucking honey?

does it wish to fly from bird to bird?

And,

Why do the water-clogged streets manage to take your mind,

back in that pigmented childhood memory,

to those nostalgia-soaked paper boats,

floating towards an unknown destination,

encouraged in their voyage by the vocal cords,

of your grandfather and an excited little kid?

That Last Drop of Rain

The clouds have gathered, meandering aimlessly in the

listless sky,

whites, blacks, of all shapes, and sizes, coming

together, thinking,

probably looking for that perfect place that should get

the rain-drops,

that patch of dry earth, that single dry leaf of a little

plant,

if only they could choose, if only the clouds could

choose.

Soon it started raining, a single drop, then another,

then a couple more,

tipper tappering on earth’s magnanimous stage,

a long-awaited union between the parched earth and

the raindrop,

a union with the hope of continuing for a long, long

time.

But, alas, all unions have to end, someday,

and this does too, after some time,

the constant tipper tapper slowly reducing back,

to the single drop as before.

What must it feel to be the last drop of rain,

closing the door shut atop the clouds and jumping into,

the arms of the unknown,

not knowing on whose face you’ll fall?

Nomads, Wanderers, Home

Are we those meandering rivers of rhythm, creating

waves,

or do we stay still where we flow,

the pitcher of our soul has a fragrant depth,

it spills, it spills, and the songs are born thereof.

A whistle on our red lips, a hat on our heads,

our feet tip-tapping onwards to an unknown journey,

our destinations afar, the world may seem tiring,

but we keep walking, humming the homecoming song,

till the world listens, sees, understands, and agrees.

Nomads, nomads we are, roaming through the cosmos

of life,

searching, searching for, wandering,

the address, the address to a home,

that home of your soul, where you floated paper boats,

where you did fly paper planes, aplenty!

As we sing through the streets,

engulfed in a vast array of cacophonic sounds,

our Sufi voice, quenching the thirst of so many ears,

but, but whose face douses our yearning,

whose eyes, hush our eternal longing?

Do our noses, in a sea of people,

feel that gentle smell of a mother’s hand, that lulled us

to sleep?

as our eyes keep searching for that patch of the moon

behind the black clouds,

as our ears listen to the flutter of the silent winds,

does it catch hold of the long-lost jingle of the bangles,

of our grandmother, who fed us food, as we kept

crying, profusely?

What’s there hidden in the deep dungeons of our

hearts,

that