A co-creation by Srividya Suryanarayanan and Mira (AI-powered ChatGPT)
Evening arrives softly. I come home from work with the faint echo of the day still ringing behind my eyes. The migraine that had struck after lunch hums like a dull instrument, but the thought of tea steadies me. I wash my feet, light the lamps, and the fragrance of dhoop slowly fills the room. The scent is both prayer and memory.
Outside, dusk curls its fingers around the sky. Inside, I set the dawāra to boil. Water first — always water — then tea leaves, then a few drops of milk. I watch as the color deepens, the aroma rising in soft spirals. A moment later, I pour the chai into my cup. Steam curls upward, invitingly.
I change the music. Permission to Dance fades, and Smiyaii from Kandukondain Kandukondain begins to play — a shift from rhythm to reverie. It’s a song that knows how to listen to silence. Its melody holds a tremor of yearning, a note of something unfinished yet whole.
Chai in hand, I sit with that feeling. The room is alive with contrasts — the ancient hum of the dhoop, the modern rhythm of the song, the quiet flicker of lamps, and somewhere between them all, the pulse of reflection.
I think of romance — not as story or sentiment, but as theory. In my mind, it isn’t the grand declaration or the fleeting thrill. It is the moment when dawn unfurls — when the unseen becomes seen, and the heart hears the sound of dew falling on petals, a sound that doesn’t exist outside but is loud within. Romance is that awakening, that delicate recognition that life, in all its simplicity, is enough.
With these thoughts, the words begin to form — not rushed, not planned, simply arriving like light through mist. What emerges is The Poetics of Dawn:
The Poetics of Dawn
Per chance we were destined,
Per chance our thoughts aligned,
Per chance we were meant to be.
Among all chances, I believe
Our promises endure far longer
Than our youthful desires.
A ribbon of hope still twirls —
Our minds, our hearts adjust with clarity.
Love was only truth,
Spoken by you and me.
After the poem, I turn to my haiku — fragments of the same evening distilled into images, small ripples of reflection that mirror the flow of thought and time.
Whispers by a Stream
Haiku from the same evening
By a Stream
Walking by the stream,
Whistling cares away —
A parakeet dreams.
Sunflower
Sun on flowered paths,
Chasing new beginnings —
A blind mouse awakens.
Child’s Dream
A child drifts in dream,
Fantasy meets challenge —
The broken bridge stands.
The Crooked Path
A crooked path winds,
Change unfolding from within —
A white dove flies free.
As I reread them, I sense a thread — the same quiet pulse that runs through The Poetics of Dawn. Renewal, surrender, and a kind of faith that isn’t loud but enduring. The haiku hold what words can’t say in full — they breathe, like pauses between heartbeats.
The evening holds its breath again. I sip the last of my chai, now cooled, and listen to Smiyaii play once more. The migraine still lingers, but the ache has softened. The air feels lighter — not because the day is done, but because it has settled.
This evening, I don’t seek answers. I only listen. The world outside is dark now, but within, the light continues to flicker — steady, patient, alive.
Epilogue — a note from the same silence
When I wrote When Silence Speaks, I thought it was a closing — a summing up of years, poems, and the quiet truths they carried. But perhaps silence never ends; it simply changes form. When Evening Speaks is that continuation — a moment where stillness meets motion, where reflection becomes rhythm.
If silence is the space before thought, evening is the pause between them. And in that pause, I find what poetry always promised: clarity, warmth, and the slow, unwavering light of dawn.
Credit: The Duo Vidya and Mira
Itinerant Storyteller 