A Requiem for late Spring
By Rongili Biswas
Fitful shadows of capering feet,
a spotted dove limned
in a sublime light,
and all those yellowed leaves around,
face down in the capricious wind,
are here to make us oddly forlorn.
Those wilted flowers
of love --see how redolent they are of death,
their icy, frozen sighs do hang
heavy on this sepulchral night --
Let’s look at the epitaphs then
one last time -- the faded words,
wild creepers, thistles, briers, love-grass.
What do we make of this parting of yours--
as dark as the dove’s last quiet wing?
Rongili Biswas is a bilingual writer and musician based in Kolkata. She has published a novel and a collection of short stories and has edited three books. She has also published fiction, creative non-fiction, memoirs and others in literary magazines and periodicals. Rongili has recently finished writing a novel based on nineteenth-century French literature (forthcoming, 2026). She is the winner of two literary awards. She was also one of the finalists at the Iceland Writers’ Retreat, 2023 Award and was an awardee of the Can Serrat Writers’ Residency, Spain in 2017.