MOHIT MITRA Poet Lyric

Attentions Undivided

—after a remark attributed to Albert Einstein—


There are convictions hid beneath the skin
of every ordinary afternoon, whose proofs
arrive before the intellect can rise
to crown them with its late authority. Thus once
I watched a father, bearing broth upstairs,
halt midway where a child's thin coughing broke
the architecture of his practised tread;
one hand still held the bowl, the other reached
as though the stair itself required a pulse.
The soup grew cold. No ordinance was lost.
Yet something in the house had altered weight.

The mason laying stone while thinking still
of yesterday erects another wall
than he whose whole consent descends through wrist
into the waiting weight. The orchard knows
which hand arrived entire. The apple keeps
a season no inspection ever finds.

I saw two lovers at a crossing once.
The city's engines gathered in their throats;
red brake-lamps flowered beneath a lowering rain.
He bent to meet her mouth. Yet all the while
his glance kept reckonings with passing steel,
with painted lanes, with mirrors and with haste.
She smiled; perhaps she never marked the theft.
The kiss came back with less of itself in it,
like rain returning from a roof of slate.

The organist whose fingers found each chord
while counting hidden debts awakened wood,
but something left before the anthem breathed.
I know that absence. Many nights my own
guitar received obedient hands alone.
No string accused me. Still, one listening note
remained outside the music all evening,
as though the room had lent it other work.

The hawk descends with every feather sworn.
The river reaches sea without debate.
No flame consults another element.

Then something entered for which sight possessed
no elder tense.

Two candles stood apart.
Neither declined, nor leaned, nor touched the air.
Yet after they were lit, the darker one
began to cast the brighter one's shadow.

Nothing thereafter seemed to keep its name.

Years later I passed that same crossing.
Rain gathered where the traffic used to wait.
Upon the rail, one swallow settled first.
The second circled twice, then folded all
its sky into the space beside the first.

Neither of them looked anywhere else.

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Sotto Poet August 2, 2026 at 10:52 AM Dear Mohit, your poem is very well-written and flows smoothly. It begins with a search for identity and self-discovery, a universal topic that many readers may relate to. The use of metaphorical language and vivid imagery successfully communicates the emotional experience. While there are a few instances when you can't even take a brief breath, the poem's beauty in style and rhythm, organization, and message is just outstanding. MOHIT MITRA August 3, 2026 at 11:45 PM Dear Sotto, Your thoughtful reading is a kindness for which I am deeply grateful. I am especially heartened that you sensed the poem's inward search beneath its surface movement, and that its imagery and quiet meditations found such generous company in your imagination. Your observation about the poem's long, unbroken breath is received with equal gratitude. It reminds me that every cadence asks something of its reader, and I value your attentiveness to that experience. Thank you for giving the poem not merely your eyes, but your considered presence. Such generous readings become part of a poem's life long after its writing is finished. In the grace of words, Mohit Mitra