}} The Survivors |

Poetry at Sangam

SangamHouse

 










The Survivors

They clung to the yellow
of parchment and library fire
giving meaning where there was none
harvested along the Nile
and growing like reeds in the delta
of civilizing empires

graded with words
like fine or smooth,
measured in digits
and profound insight
making passage across the crevasse
on the slips of ages
with a calligrapher’s flourish
chewed and swallowed
by curious travellers

they reverberate under glass
like whispers secreted into a ear
the voice of an imprisoned poet
adjusting language to the dark
amplifying precision and purity
the grit of footsteps on the right
side of surface opaqueness
and getting to the pith
of the verse        within        fibre.
 
 
 
← Mrinalini Harchandrai