What If We Lose This Coin Of Urgency And Pause?

The gravity of our yearnings always intensifies and harnesses our ability to create.

In ‘No Urgency To Be Home’, Neha R. Krishna’s first book of Haiku and Tanka, she has arranged bricks of moments and memories with absolute care and constructed a place for the reader to stroll, pause, and contemplate.

The book bears individuated human experiences, humour, memories, solitude, and emotions. Her words carry thicker tones and ease of reflection, which artfully condenses into memories. Her poetic skills leave sufficient blank spaces in her verses for the readers to fill with their experiences and imaginations. Moreover, the poems in this collection illustrate many handpicked moments.

Even the poet takes a moment of pretending before picking up the coin. The poet is subconsciously aware of the eyes around them. Also, this act of pretending adds a texture of little humour. As humans, we are accustomed to societal pressure and undoubtedly greed, hence the act of pretending.

Don’t we often put up a show of stepping on the coin or adjusting shoe laces/straps and quickly picking it up? The vertical axis of this poem depicts the extension of opportunities. Are we ready for opportunities at once, or do we take time to think whether we deserve them or they deserve us?

Love is a simple emotion complicated by humans, and we read this in the above bleak and biting haiku. It is an emotion pivoting on human-made complexity. Here she is entreating us to recognize the functional combat of doomed fate.

This visual frame of spring rain influences the senses with just a barefoot walk. Doesn’t it tickle and wonder to imagine the walk on water-soaked grass and some of its straws sticking underneath the feet? Just enjoy the thought of rainwater splashing out of the book. There is also a pinch of bare romance and innocence of spring that often stirs love in the air. Try to listen to the whispering mouths when she sneaks out in the rain barefoot to meet him, a simple yet beautiful moment.

It might seem like the poet has studied this inevitable behaviour. The hopelessness of the dark no-moon sky gives us an urge to peek into someone else’s misfortune. We often skim the holes, whether it’s on clothes or shoes. We have acted ignored and pretentious too. This is more of a reflection of the horizontal axis. But if we engage in the vertical depth, then we epiphanically realize how the poet summarizes our behaviour of feeling contented with our problems on seeing someone else’s misery.

Our willingness to endure pain is so profound. The way we pause to steal the redness of the sun-setting sky and the urge to scratch and peel the drying wound neatly encapsulate the juxtaposition of the tanka.

Here the poet interrelates some memories with fireworks. Were the moments purposely ignored or unknowingly ignored becomes the question here.

The cadence of moonlights romances with the tree. This haiku is a visual treat. It allows the words to play with your senses. The poet has the brilliance to engage us with the art of brevity. The moon entangling on a tree also depicts a sense of eroticism, which fills the night with beautiful ragas.

Another piece that pulls me with the same essence:

The poet further continues to intensify the intimacy and stimulate the sense of longing with these handfuls of words. As if the tongue knew the taste of the skin and still longs for it.

Even this piece beholds the plurality of desires

Or this tanka looks graciously etched on the skin

The humour in this piece brings a smile to my face.

This piece in itself is a song of despair

Each poem (haiku & tanka) is a memory. Neha R. Krishna’s style of writing is honest, and her words are sensitive. There are many memories to cherish and many to mourn in this collection. The cover of this book is a journey in itself. The poems in this collection compel the readers to pause and savour the moments.