Usha Kishore

At the Senate House Library

Postcolonialism envelops me,
with its Indian shades and
colonial trappings…

I am a colony within a colony –
I seek a space in the endless
realms of migratory birds…

A hundred eyes stare down
at me from the books that
haunt the walls – Bhabha,
Spivak, Said and the rest –
their pages leap out at me
and spurt out words that I

interpret from outside colonial
space – my psyche, dampened 
by exile and a longing beyond

words; the grey sky comes
down on me through the
window and chases me –

to dye me in its hues;
I clutch my Indianness
in vain, its colours spill

into my poetry –
I seek words from
the Bible and the Vedas

and hold up my verse
like the Holy Grail –
they evaporate, leaving

their dregs on my pages –
my songs spill on alien
land, I now call my own –

I have come a long way
to this Saraswati kshetra
in the heart of  England,

which will now fold me
into itself – a postcolonial
trapped between nations –

Its notes will now tangle
me in a rainbow land,
caught between roaring

monsoons and autumnal gales…