Evening

by Bibhu Padhi (June 2014)

It is the cow-dust hour

and there is the smell

of bird-wings in the trees.

Darkness lowers

on the valley of Dhenkanal

like an angel coming down

to an unfamiliar earth.

The body seeks an earlier

noontime, when everything seemed

amazingly long, including time.

The earth looks away

from us, towards the night

and leaves to us

a new loneliness.

__________________ 

Bibhu Padhi’s eighth book of poems, Magic Ritual, was published earlier this year. His work has appeared in numerous magazines and anthologies, the most recent being THE HARPERCOLLINS BOOK OF ENGLISH POETRY (2012). He lives in Bhubaneswar, India.

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