Lone Pine

Siddhartha Menon

The last sky of yesterday

the first of today

trees jagging into what light there is.

No telling which is which

without captions. No labels

suffice for skies in transit.

Call the night that fell between them

a day.

Rooted in landscapes and listening, Siddhartha Menon's Lone Pine is a vivid meditation on topography, time and the shifting nature of identity. The poems move with grace and intensity, carrying the reader from stillness to revelation, from the immediate to the far-flung.

In 'Settings', the quiet residence of trees and ceaseless motion of the river offer more than scenery – they embody questions of belonging, conflict and nature's flawed and unyielding beauty. With 'Stirrings', the focus turns inward, tracing the currents of human connection, the ebb and flow of relationships, and the pulse of time moving through us. 'Bearings' asks what it means to see and to turn away, to bear witness to violence, personal and planetary, or to find meaning in silence. In these poems, Menon stands at the threshold: observer, participant, seeker of truth.

With language both tender and unflinching, Lone Pine offers no easy answers, but an invitation to watch and listen. It nudges us to navigate the world – its rough contours, its shadows and its light – and to discover the shape of our own place within it.