Summary of this article
The poems in this collection trace the luminous moments between darkness and light, the hour known as the 'Hour of God'.
They show us how the world changes us and is changed by us.
This collection resists linear resolution, instead embracing discontinuity as a form of truth.
Fragile Lexicon
The river, scribe of forgotten prayers,
the stone, keeper of slow time,
the fog, dissolver of borders,
the moon, archivist of tides—
gathered the sound of your footsteps
into the forest of my throat.
The storm left its ledger open,
the roots traced their verdicts underground,
the stars withheld their testimony,
the wind erased its own name
until the earth’s mute alphabet
began to twist into voice.
The heron, still as a monk,
the otter, merchant of joy,
the willow, commissioner of shadows,
the wren, census-taker of dawn,
stitched silences into a song
led me to the light inside myself.
Sun’s first light wrote on water,
the reed’s ink bled sideways,
clouds bartered their shapes,
the bridge forgot its math—
then the animals stepped forward
with their pockets full of dawn.
Conversation with a Seed
Just the two of us here,
sitting face to face.
Me, a fleck of paused intention
in a coat of dulled brown,
and you: cupped earth.
Outside, goldenrod glowers acid-yellow
in the spruce’s long shade,
rocks clutch their shadow-rags.
Even the granite’s orange lichen
sheds its skin.
But here, in this damp silk
of shaded afternoon,
we touch the quiet.
You think me small?
Listen—this dark is patient craft.
Not like the gull’s slow lope
across a clammy sky,
not like the fireweed’s
unchosen, breeze-less fall.
This dark, is root-ward,
deep and cool as spruce-resonance,
thrumming a different hum.
I hold the blueprint
of the acid-glow,
the feathery grass-head,
the boulder’s slow confession.
I am the before of shadow,
the after of the lichen’s gold.
London rains, Paris turns.
But here, beneath the stain
of one dead branch’s russet,
beneath the weight of years
that shift the very stone,
I am the constant yes
against the world’s persistent no.
I am the quiet conversation
the earth repeats with light.
The husk holds firm
but deep within, a green ignites.
Vinita Agrawal is a poet, editor and translator.
