the louderARTS Project

Photo Courtesy of James E. Strickland

Sonia Mukherji

Sonia Mukherji was born in Calcutta, raised in Maryland, and lives in New York.  She is a Kundiman fellow, and her poetry has been published in the US and internationally in literary journals including Shampoo Poetry, Stylus, and Calcutta’s The Little Magazine.  She has featured in venues in New York, Maryland, Austin, and Michigan, and was given an international poetry feature performance in Calcutta, India, which was held at the prestigious cultural institute Nandan, hosted and reviewed by the literary journal Bhashanagar, and televised. 

Sonia graduated from the University of Maryland, College Park, as a Math major with a concentration in Economics, and is a professional Indian classical dancer with 19 years of training.  At 17, she was Miss India Maryland at the national Miss India USA pageant.

When she’s not writing or contemplating number theory, she enjoys collecting fables and devising stratagems.

sonia_mukherji at yahoo dot com
soniam.blogspot.com

When you came calm, it was 
 
Naïve wings, half-alive,

fluttering. 

I will show you the baby birds,

chirp and tongue tender still. 

I pretended then.

I did not move them. 

Crimson cloth chrysanthemums,

eggs nestled in manufactured twigs. 

You are here, asking.

I will tell you the story of the sparrow,

who made nest a wreath I had bought

from a flea market. 

Are we not, each of us, seeking, envisioning?

Suddenly sobbing savagely for gashes in the other’s skin.

Do we not look to the oblivion with trembling mouths,

and gaping limbs?

We are, now. 

Once, you pointed,

“there we live, between Nostradamus and Galileo,

deciphering things as we go.”

We looked at the sky in wonder.

We were, then. 

You come here clean, wanting no bandages.

As if to say that the cardinal with wings clipped

never knew the injuries of flight.

© Sonia Mukherji