Poetry : Saudade

 

Saudade

                    Those were the sentences,

Curated from fragments of life,

Beautifully crafted each day with care,

Tracing the contours of her world—

Its joys, its fears, its lingering regrets.

 

Those were the sentences.

They became her windows to the outside world

When she was confined to her home,

Accompanied by aching joints of age

And her beloved garden.

 

Those were the sentences.

They began as imperfect sentences,

Yet slowly they created a vast landscape,

Populated with childhood memories, familiar places,

And lives that gradually took shape.

 

Those were the sentences.

Within them one could hear a congregation of voices,

Weaving relationships and memories

She would rather leave undisturbed.

She guarded those memories carefully,

Rarely letting her defences fall,

Yet allowing the reader to glimpse

The very heart of her world

Through five broken sentences at a time.

 

Those were the sentences.

As they travelled from pen to paper

They gathered silences,

And sometimes misunderstandings

Which The writer never intended.

 

Those were the sentences.

They were never merely a means of communication;

They became a record of silence,

Of hesitation, and of desire.

Their fragmented style

Created an unexpected intimacy

With the reader,

Who quietly accepted the task

Of piecing the puzzle together.

 

Those were the sentences.

They never found the hands

For which they were written.

A month has passed.

They remain unsent—

Suspended between silence and speech.

And in that unfinished journey,

Saudade still breathes.

 - Pankaj Mala Bhattacharya

21.07.2026