Poetry pick: Days of Recovery by Nomita Kapur

Quiet and powerful, this new collection shares the poet’s experience of cancer and the discoveries she made as she navigated her illness

PORCUPINES

130pp, ₹499; Speaking Tiger (Days of Recovery: Making stillness its concern.)

Like porcupines we have bled each other. The closer we sit, The deeper the stab of the quills.

Now we’ve learned to sit at a healthy distance – A proximity free of resistance, For the warmth of love is best feltThrough a small, well-calibrated space.

Civil, tolerant and wise, Within our human frames, we’ll be partners for life.But in the end, a question remains:To be well-adjusted porcupines –Is that our highest aim?

THE GIFT OF ILLNESS

The great gift of illnessIs the respite I get from my busy-ness.While my mind gallops and churns,My body learns to make stillness its concern. Heavy is the weight of the illness I carry,Heavier still, the weight of clinging to recovery.

Lord, grant me that I may put down this load.Upon me, let the gift of living be bestowed.

And grant me this: Tranquil be the waves of my heartAs I find warmth in the prospectof life and death in equal parts.

Nomita Kapur (Courtesy the publisher)

When cancer brought Nomita Kapur’s ‘active days to a halt’, her universe shifted, without warning. Gradually, over months, she found her balance again, a different, deeper balance. From that pause — ‘a deeply reflective space’ that helped her reclaim her life, and understand the true meaning of recovery — emerged the poems collected in this quietly remarkable book. In sharing her experience and the discoveries she made, she empowers us with this collection; for, in our different ways, we are all in recovery.