(Oh) Burglar, (My) Burglar

Neera Handa Dr tagged me and invited me to try my hand at a Landay, a 22-syllabled couplet, with a nine-syllabled first line, and a 13-syllabled second. It is traditionally composed and sung by female Afghan bards. Here is a series of interconnected Landay(s).

Does burglary make you so joyful

That you stole my heart when I was lost in my own thoughts?

When the breezes blow from my land to

Yours, do they whisper my name in your delicate ears?

Do the leaves that drift down in autumn

Fill you with gentle melancholy about lost dreams?

Shall we meet again, then, dearest soul

On the bridge that spans the babbling brook they call the ‘Dawn’?

And will it be a dawn for us, too,

This tryst at the bridge, over the brook, at the break of dawn?

©️ 2021 Suma Narayan. All Rights Reserved.

This is the story, written by Neera Handa Dr, which inspired me to try my hand at this new poetic form.