Sail me down
A river of moon
I could be a
Silver fish today.
Flash me through
A fire of blue, I
Could be bait for
Tunes, today.
Slow me down and sink me low
I could weep salt pearls today.
Write me a day and sing me away
Be my swing slung from a tree today,
Bound with trails and trellis of leaf
That I can hold when I want to pray..
‘Kum’. A word meaning dry.
Today I read that the Aral Sea
(So vast a lake that its name was
More than it was meant to be)
Is a desert now. ‘Qum’,
Meaning sand. How quickly
We have changed water
To land. ‘Karakum’, a desert,
Held together by the Amu
And the Syr, rivers both, that fed
This now sanded earth. ‘Darya’,
A word from our childhoods, said
Most often, with ‘aansu’, or ‘daya’.
Let irony feed this reservoir of shame.
The AralKum is now a name.
Old ships litter dry harbours
Cliffs rise from dusty banks.
Camels rest in the shade of wrecks
Tracking the salt of the Aral’s tears.
Like sand in an hourglass,
Memory falls softly, speaking
Of starving nations fed
From the Sea. Now irony
Feeds this reservoir of shame
The AralKum is now a name.
It seems at Yellowstone Park
The Earth’s crust is very thin.
If the world were to end, this
Is where it would begin. And
Just yesterday, they found there’s
More fire underneath than they
Thought. And it occurs to me that
No battle is as fiercely fought
As between the need for a thicker
Skin and the burn of fires within.
No peace more dearly bought.
There’s a place for us
Just as the song said there
Would be. A place for us
Where children and young ones
Will not see. A place
For the dry heave, the swift
Contortion of the face;
When the corners of the lips lift
In a sad grimace. Where
Strangers only are granted the grace
To witness sorrow and solitude
In their hurried embrace. A place
Where those who haven’t had
The time to grieve, are granted
Just there, a moment’s reprieve.
Peace be in your streets
Let no neighbour inspect
Your larder for its meats.
Let no man suspect
Your daughter of eyeing
Mates of other castes.
Peace be in your markets
As people shop between fasts.
May those who consider dyeing
Their cloths in other hues
Choose wisely amongst colours
While paying holy dues.
Peace be in your homes
Where reading stops at sundown
When hiding certain tomes
Means riding until run down.
Let no man be left slumped
On his doorstep, stained.
Let huddles of good folk disperse
Their blood lust undrained.
Let sunsets carry what reds
We need to light our days
And nations wave what flags
They must, and go their separate ways.
Peace be upon this city
That none need earn their pity.
When the red gold sears
The desert sands of the skies
And the mountain rises
Like a mirage, mystic, promising
Water to the sailor, thirsting
For sandy shores. And the seas
Glitter and glow on dark beaches
Bringing treasure from the reaches
To strange lands where women
Watch from the rocks for seafarers
Washed ashore.
The pleasure of daffodils
Worth the words of that couch-lier
Danced springbright until
The light one early evening caught
The shine and glow and fire
Of Amaltas. An empty vase
A mirror, a mask – it’s not
As if reflections on summers past
Cannot be painted and worn. It’s just
That sometimes the pleasure of
The Amaltas
Cannot be borne.
The green and gold bronze
The all seeing eye; rivulets
Of yellow run down the ivory cheek.
Of all the things left behind, I
Carried a face to face the lost things
I would seek. It’s not
As if reflections of Indian summers
Can’t be worn. It’s just that sometimes
The memory of Amaltas
Can’t be borne.
(Amaltas is the Indian name for Laburnum)
I thought I saw Icarus fall
White in a sky of blue
An iridescent fireball
A folly of feathers and glue
I thought I heard Icarus sing
The wind fluting in descent
A common snipe on the wing
A late spring lament.
But my eyes have long since failed me
Not entirely from years
Blinded by a son that blazed as he trailed me
Afire with my burden of fears.
Too old to see these silent flyers
Childless father of flight
Bound forever in this bird thronged tower
Forever airborne, blinded by light.
You can cross the seas to
Witness his birth
Fly the skies, straddle
The earth
But he’s born every time he
Touches the strings
Reborn with
Every note, every song
He sings. Its
One way to define
Liberty; its own kind
Of immortality.
(The picture below is of Amar Pandey, who inspired this poem, and who is one of the super-heroes in The Book of Guardians series.)
Giti Chandra 