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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
Thursday, 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.
Tuesday, 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.
Monday, 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.