FOOTSTEPS, AGAIN
Today again I hear your footsteps,
slowly brought back to my home,
painting the whole house green.
This is the hour of birds and flowers.
Time does not move. It is here
that all the past years return
in a second, paint me a dull brown.
Whose footsteps are echoed
on the tall corridors of time?
Which sea is heard once again—
the sea of a million years
contracted to the space of a second?
My feet are chained to the years.
Who makes an effort to acquire the earth?
Whose footsteps are heard again—
ancient like history and stones,
green like the sea and the leaves?
A Pushcart nominee, Bibhu Padhi has published fifteen books of poetry. His poems have appeared in distinguished magazines throughout the English-speaking world, such as Contemporary Review, London Magazine, The Poetry Review, Poetry Wales, The Rialto, Stand, Wasafiri, America Media, The American Scholar, Atlanta Review, Commonweal, The Manhattan Review, and elsewhere. He lives with his family in Bhubaneswar, India.