Mitali Chakravarty - Issue 36

Mitali Chakravarty can be found on a tropical island with her family, close to where otters swim and devour fish noisily. The island has many parakeets, golden orioles, hornbills, turtles and fishes, is near the equator and it’s eternally summer there. Mitali looks out of her window and dreams of floating on clouds and traveling the world. She has visited more than eighty cities and churned out three books of poems: Flight of the Angsana Oriole (Hawakal Publishers, India, 2023), Cities, Nomads and Rocks (Gibbon Moon, UK, 2024) and From Calcutta to Kolkata: A City of Dreams (Hawakal Publishers, India, 2025). She has published widely in online and offline forums. She has published as part of more than a dozen anthologies. Her writings can be found in Fixator Press, Literary Yard, ThumbprintNE, Daily Star (Bangladesh), Medusa’s Kitchen, Lothlorien Journal, Saaranga, Zest of Lemon (Volumes 3&4), Caesurae, Plato’s Cave, Rhetorica Quarterly among many other places. Mitali has also edited two anthologies: Monalisa No Longer Smiles: An Anthology of Writings from Across the World (Om Books International, India, 2022) and Our Stories, Our Struggle: Violence and The Lives of Women (Speaking Tiger Books, India, 2024).

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Aeons Later...

As I ride, buildings fold

like cardboard boxes, 

enclosing all traffic, all life. 

Aeons of skies flit by:

some hundred, thousand 

years pass by in a blink. 

When the boxes dissolve, 

releasing their contents, 

all will have changed —

Only the Earth will remain constant. 

The skies would be the colour 

of searing sunrises, growing 

out of purple starry nights. 

New species of plants would sway 

with unknown animals galloping 

and water like crystal — clean. 

And we? Humanity would have 

evolved into ethereal beings 

in rainbow-coloured fields! 

Wheat Field with Crows

(For Van Gogh)

Black crows fly

across the sky

torn with grey war. 

Wheat fields swish 

unblemished, unable 

to appease stomachs. 

Hunger stares forlorn 

letting out screams,

scattering crops

till empty stomachs 

gaze longingly, unfed, 

desolate like Gaza kids. 

And he died hungry, 

unloved, painting 

sunflowers and wheat fields.

Breaking Fast

The runny yolk spills 

sunshine on my plate. 

Each morning awakens

to eggs, chirps and traffic. 

Sunlight flocks white pigeons, 

parakeets and traffic sounds. 

Mynahs prefer pool water 

or distilled water from cars. 

 Only fish, turtles, monitors, 

water birds drink from the river. 

The river flows gently with 

ripples kissed by the breeze. 

Sunshine bejewels the waves 

in a sparkling, undulating 

dance while the news reel 

is turned off on television. 

Wars recede, so do human lives. 

Filled with sunshine, a cloud 

gathers the darkness of history 

to pour unrelenting rain. 

Breaking fasts on mornings 

appease hunger. How many 

starve, lose homes, die, 

yet, birds breakfast with me!