SUDEEP SEN’S WALKS IN LEOPARD COUNTRY

DEODAR, ALMORA

for Shekhar & Vinita

The sky-high deodar trees

   in parallel platoons —

outline the blue folds

   of the snow-crowned

Himalayan mountains —

   forming filigreed grill-frames. 

Statuesque, bark-woven —

   they shield us from sun’s

severe blaze. The rays, laser-

   sharp — the air’s nip, crisp —

embraces my weakened lungs,

   slow-resuscitating them.

Pure oxygen-ozone here

   negates, partially,

the abrasive pollutants

   embedded in my trachea —

as my chest’s trapped wheeze,

   groans in slow motion.

My homestay sojourn

   injected relief — a spark

allowing me to breathe again.

   But mostly, I love the love

of friends-as-family —

   its blessed innate poetry.

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Sudeep Sen is the International and Poetry Editor at Ars Notoria and a leading international poet whose prize-winning books include: Postmarked India: New & Selected Poems (HarperCollins), Aria (A K Ramanujan Translation Award), Fractals: New & Selected Poems | Translations 1980-2015 (London Magazine Editions), EroText (Penguin), Kaifi Azmi: Poems | Nazms (Bloomsbury), Anthropocene (Pippa Rann, Rabindranath Tagore Literary Prize), and Red. Edited landmark anthologies include: The HarperCollins Book of English Poetry, Modern English Poetry by Younger Indians (Sahitya Akademi), and Converse: Contemporary English Poetry by Indians (Pippa Rann). Blue Nude: Ekphrasis & New Poems (Jorge Zalamea International Poetry Prize), Rock, and The Whispering Anklets are forthcoming. His photography represented by ArtMbassy, Rome/Berlin, is part of private/public collections. The Government of India awarded him the senior fellowship for “outstanding persons in the field of culture/literature.” Sen is the first Asian honoured to deliver the Derek Walcott Lecture and read at the Nobel Laureate Festival.