Poetry at Sangam
Poetry at Sangam showcases poetry in English and translations as well as essays on poetics and news of new releases.
(for Mariam Karim Ahlawat)
Half hidden by shrub, the mother fox
watched the Reynar play with a boy
who didn’t know they were fox cubs.
And a pregnant neelgai walked
fearless on the empty mall,
as some stragglers reached for cameras, not guns.
The peacock with its plumes
quarried from a turquoise mine,
its call inlaid with metal, danced on the tar,
not knowing it wasn’t supposed to.
Salt flats looked out for flamingoes who never came,
the mauve carnival of feather and down
did not descend on waiting eyes;
and the French lady
(with the semi-Mesopotamian name
which had sailed down the Tigris
as her naming ceremony was underway)
who looked out of the window and found ,
a bakula with its aphrodisiac petals,
the tree which sends out its flowers only
when beautiful women rinse their mouths
with sweet wine and let go on the stem,
which wore a tiara of black bees around the buds
when this was observed by someone
on his morning walk on the Andromeda Galaxy,
(the one nearest us)
he called out to his beloved, ‘Look down,
it’s not such a bad planet after all.’
10th June, 2020
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