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The Daily Verse
To make The Wise Owl more dynamic, we have introduced The Daily Verse, a segment where we upload poetry all days of the week. Just send in a poem to editor@thewiseowl.art
July 2026
Theme: Under the Gathering Sky
Wednesday, 8th July 2026
Local Lore
By Neera Kashyap
In our hill cottage, storms at night made me afraid. I would move down to the lower bedroom to avoid the harsh sounds of rain and wind beating down on our tin roof, with just thin pine planks on the underside. Our cottage was at the foot of a slope that rose to a scattered pine cover, several trees shorn of lower branches for firewood. In the bedroom below, the storm sounded less angry, but through the glass front, I couldn't take my eyes off the fluorescent lightning that forked the dark sky like a snake's tongue. My Pahari caretaker laughed at my fear, casually informing me that even if a pine fell on the cottage, it would not seriously harm it.
One tempestuous night I heard something crash heavily above. I had fearful thoughts of a tree crashing through the roof to land on my bed, branches dripping wet. In the morning, we saw that a lopped tree had indeed landed on the tin roof. Two wooden planks had fallen and one glass window broken. My caretaker and his friends roped the tree away as if it was a matchstick.
green peaches
scattered on wet grass
bruised but sweet
About the Author
Neera Kashyap has published a book for young adults (Daring to Dream, Rupa & Co.) and contributed to several prize-winning children’s anthologies (Children’s Book Trust). Her poems, short stories, book reviews and essays have appeared in several national and international literary journals and anthologies. Her debut collections of poetry (The Art of Unboxing, Red River) and short fiction (Cracks in the Wall, Niyogi Books) were both published in July 2025.
Tuesday, 7th July 2026
Dusking
By Geetha Nair
It is dusking now...
Strands of red net the west.
Within, bleak clouds gaze out
In mute unrest.
​
I too am dusking.
Before all is black
Shall I set my things in order?
Apologies,thankfulness...
Yet exultation reigns
There is nothing out there, I know,
Nothing but space, oblivion.
And so it was good to live,
To relish what was given,
To love, be loved
To watch faces shine
And voices tinkle like a stream
Steadily flowing down the years,
A mudbank here, a stone there,
But none stagnating
the living flow.
Dusking...
And now the red is weak
The clouds flee,
I await the final setting.
About the Author
Geetha Nair loves reading & writing poetry
Monday, 6th July 2026
Watcher of the Skies
By Salvatore Difalco
When I follow the trajectory
of an unidentified anomalous phenomenon
I am struck by its speed as it spans
the sky in seconds, passing
behind the crescent moon.
What does this—in the big picture—mean?
It could be space debris, or some species
of satellite save for its abrupt
return and sudden pause
in the middle of the sky.
Motionless for a moment,
it then zips off, zigzagging back
to its starting point, as if it knows
I am watching and wants to give me a show.
And maybe it would comfort me to know
that as I am watching it
it is watching me and perhaps is as
curious or puzzled by my existence
as I am of it. But chances are I am
a microbe on its scanners,
a tiny fragile life form with limited
mobility and almost no lifespan.
That is why I perform ten jumping jacks
and run on the spot for a minute.
That is why I sing a few bars
of my favourite Genesis song.
Will you survive the ocean of being?
If it is watching I’ll also give it a show.
About the Author
Sicilian Canadian poet and storyteller Salvatore Difalco lives in Toronto, Canada. Recent work appears in Cafe Irreal, The Lake, and The Journal of Compressed Arts.
Friday, 3rd July 2026
Under a Gathering Sky
By Rashmi Mohapatra
Under a gathering sky,
people carry their silences like umbrellas.
The clouds are the pride of forgotten letters;
the wind, their unread sentences.
Heart is a half-open window
where memories perch like sparrows.
Time spills its ink
across the notebook of blue.
Our waiting
is as deep as hidden roots.
Our laughter
is the last breath of light before rain.
No one ever reaches another completely,
even the sky
only pretends to touch the horizon.
Yet every cloud
finds room in one sky.
People
raise fences of thorns inside their own chests,
until the sky gathers as one,
while hearts die embracing their private lightning.
About the Author
An ex-banker, Rashmi is a bilingual poet who writes in Odia and English. Her work has appeared in various magazines and journals. She has published five anthologies of Odia poems and one in English.
Thursday, 2nd July 2026
The Language of Clouds
By Anukriti Ashok
Tender, fluffy clouds gather,
like dreams woven on silk pillows.
They melt in my hands like lather,
evoking warm, campfire marshmallows.
When distant hopes take flight,
they extend warmth like companions.
When weary wings are troubled by sunlight,
they provide shade like wisdom-laden banyans.
Sometimes, they wear forgotten shades,
like wrinkles on an old, discarded sweater.
Grey emotions burst, their anger fades,
like tear-soaked words on a love letter.
Monsoon arrives, they hide the moon like a mystery,
Carrying unspoken desires and an untold history.
About the Author
Anukriti Ashok is an Assistant Professor of English at Satyawati (Evening) College and a research scholar at the University of Delhi. An avid poetry enthusiast, her work has been featured in various poetry anthologies, literary journals, and e-magazines. She is the author of the award-winning poetry collection When the Hummingbird Sings, which earned her the 21st Century Emily Dickinson Award, The Golden Book Award, and the International Author's Excellence Award.
Wednesday, 1st July 2026
Wonder
By Tamoghna Mukherjee
“Nothing astonishes us anymore.”
Under a sky sequined with dead and stillborn stars,
you, lying amidst the blades of grass, were mumbling
this line last night like an arcane sylvan incantation.
Since then, I’ve been noticing how
a departure is just a departure, how no arrival
emanates the warmth of familiarity,
how every morning is like a bleak shadow of
a beast forcibly tamed, how every night is
a mere stone whose lustre is gone for good.
Say, who still wants to be astonished here?
Who, in this indifferent city, still awaits a moment
of epiphany and dreams of getting awestruck
by the blooming of a thousand Queens of the Night?
Is it you? Is it me? Is it you? Is it us? See how
the sky still glides past the weary corpses of crepuscules
in anticipation of the cooing of newborn stars.
And the incantation that you reiterated last night
is what still has a kernel of wonder nestled inside its womb.
About the Author
Tamoghna Mukherjee is a poet, translator, essayist, and PhD researcher who writes in both Bengali and English. His work has appeared in journals and magazines including Muse India, Poetry India, Verseville, Anandabazar, and Desh. He regularly participates in poetry readings and literary events across India and tries to engage with memory, history, landscape, and the complexities of contemporary experiences through literary and academic writings. He is the author of three poetry collections and has translated the works of several Bengali poets into English.