SOMEWHERE SOMETHING: DR SHANTA ACHARYA Next Poem:....................................................................................................................................... Back to Poetry Index

We travel not to explore another country
but to return home fresh, bearing gifts.

Our lives the airports we fly from,
our bodies and souls, maps and compasses -
days the journeys we make,
past the continents we leave behind.

Surely there is somewhere, something
that justifies our coming and going?

Isn't that why we seek evidence from each other
of experiences worth dying for
as we partake love in starlight
brittle with frost and the sharp taste of blood?

Let's fly free, not nailed to a mast;
see the universe with new eyes
not blinded by shadows that light casts.

Dr. Shanta Acharya is an internationally published poet. She was born and educated in Orissa, India. Her poetry collections include Shringara (Shoestring Press, UK; 2006); Looking In, Looking Out (Headland Publications, UK; 2005), Numbering Our Days' Illusions (Rockingham Press, UK; 1995) and Not This, Not That (Rupa & Co, India; 1994). Her doctoral study, The Influence of Indian Thought on Ralph Waldo Emerson, was published by The Edwin Mellen Press, USA, in 2001. She is also the author of books on asset management. She won a scholarship to Oxford, and was among the first batch of women admitted to Worcester College in 1979. Between 1983-85 she was a Visiting Scholar at Harvard. She is currently Associate Director, Initiative on Foundation and Endowment Asset Management at London Business School.

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