The Visitor's Register

On a serendipitous trail,
journey is a relay race.
 
That whoever walks,
leaves behind a path.
 
That whoever falls,
leaves behind an  evidence.
 
That whoever smiles,
leaves behind a little sunshine.
 
The foot that stomps,
removes the top soil
 
gifting the one to arrive,
the pleasure of an explorer.
 
Earth, a failed lover
waiting for its new love.
 
A bit like art perhaps,
carving ourselves out
in paint, words, and film
 
Monalisa, Shakuntala,
Marilyn Monroe, Vasavadatta –
love drips from the canvas.
 
The deeper we go
into our own wild paths,
congruent our cartograms.
 
Say a circular race track
between lung and nose,
 
a decoy of the mundane,
often tipping us over
at the dangerous curves.
 
When the clock
outgrows itself into a compass,
 
the time-enslaved laymen
turn footloose beyond
the tragedy of routine.

Author

Aditya Shankar is an Indian poet, flash fiction author, and translator. His poems, fiction, and translations have appeared or is forthcoming in the Kitaab, Unbroken, Modern Literature, The Ghost Parachute, Canada Quarterly, Indian Literature, Modern Poetry in Translation, The Little Magazine, The Four Quarters Magazine, The Anti Heroin Chic, The After Happy Hour Review, Chandrabhaga, Muse & Murmur, and elsewhere. Books: After Seeing (2006), Party Poopers (2014). He lives in Bangalore, India.