Beetle that chews autumn
- The Aleph Review
- 11 minutes ago
- 2 min read
Dr. Chayanika Saikia
A short poetic meditation from a New Delhi-based poet.
it goes like this, i water the plants, the beetle
chews leaves half
yellow-turned,
more water, more chewing comes; it’s almost
midnight, sky atop the city is
unmindful
of such things; a pouch of cumulus overthinks, swells, disintegrates like thoughts
of the stars
sulking over the luxe city lights
to wipe out silverness out of their glitz, but then
this is not about nimbus or cumulus,
hyperventilating
long in monsoon mass now trending into autumnal ease, it’s us down here,
the beetle,
the leaves,
me chewing things, in
early autumn life embarrassingly refutes to push things hard that crumble like crisps.
i shouldn’t water so late, beetle shouldn’t eat,
tendril of the chewed up plant twines around the west star;
sometimes, we do hook up with things beyond reach, not for moonlight, the season
burns
our skin too bright.
sleep beetle sleep,
so do i.
with a missing beat of heart
in dreams, i skip autumn tonight.
To view the featured artwork in its entirety, please click here.
Dr. Chayanika Saikia is a Pushcart Prize 2024 nominee and winner of the Glass House Poetry Award 2024. Her work has appeared in Yearbook of Indian Poetry 2022, The Hooghly Review (forthcoming), Muse India, Petrichor, Piker Press, the anthology Scent of Rain and others. Chayanika works as a geoscientist for a national oil company in New Delhi.
Muhammad Atif Khan graduated with Distinction in Fine Art from the National College of Arts, Lahore, Pakistan. An illustrious career spanning 24 years has seen a plethora of international awards, residencies and workshops. In 1998, he was awarded the ‘UNESCO-ASHBURG Bursary for Artists’, and was appointed Artist in Residence at the Darat-Al-Funun in Amman, Jordan. He received the ‘Commonwealth Arts & Crafts Award’ and has shown his work in galleries across Pakistan and abroad.
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