Five Poems by Sreekala Sivasankaran

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Pic by Annie Roenkae

 

 

Untitled

Blank as I am
I retrieve my forest
Off the light
All the light

Black as I am
I am the night
My crying songs return
Without body
A vanambadi*

*Skylark


 

Love alone

They were trying to define beauty
Truth, justice, strength
In all fairness and darkness
Let it be so

We stood high on the hill
Bare in the balcony
Gleaming in the green canopy
Stumbling upon the flowers
Thrown on the ground
Slipping down the edges
Falling into the abyss
Until you came
In the form of a memory
A gift —

Throbbing inside
Moving the elephant hill
That was unable to move
Unable to fall in the hurricane
Unable to see its own height
In the falling rays of sunlight

I can now bend down to the earth
To the sands
To catch a breath of you
That smell of you-
In a drop of water
They call it passion

Call it sustenance of spirit
Instilled in me in the fading time
Where there was none
But you, the love of life
The promise of next meeting


 

Wisdom Tooth

Wisdom tooth
Growing in all directions
What will it do?
I don’t know
I don’t know
That is what I know
Where all can it grow?
It can grow till your cheeks
That is where it hurts
That is where it swells
I can feel the swelling
I can feel the pain
This is is what I have
This is what I have


 

Void

Rain-washed earth
Still smelling like death
The flesh of moving animals
Not moving anywhere

Fried fish on the pan
Still tasting like flesh
Plants where the blood spilled
All smelling together

Death-filled water
Cat vomiting grass
Everyone vomiting
Vomiting sky

Oh dead memory!
Nature’s indifference!
Forests, deserts
All devoid of qualities
Devoid of songs
Just beating on

Which sights have disappeared,
They were to disappear
Like discarded stories
The last meowing cat
Lend me your ears
Death is great!

Plain, skeletenous
Everything left behind
Down to the earth
No pull of menace of science
No falcons of faiths

Another planet
Another cosmos
Another dust
Mixed with water
To waterless sphere
To the void
Devoid of pain


 

The House Is Beautiful

The house is beautiful
To those who see its oldness
Whether it is one year
Or one hundred years
One who sees through the cracks
The dust of limestones falling
On the stained floor tiles cockroaches running
By the yellow bulb
The wings of termites burning

The old meal safe carrying steel plates
With names etched on them
Proof of life! Proof of life!

The smell of the rice fields
And the hands that made every offering
The art of the coconut shell
Turning into a flower vase
All the bygone springs …
The faded paintings
In the dimly lit rooms
And the memory of fragrance in the verandah
Fallen flowers in the gravel yard
So beautiful…
Oh, please bend your head
Do not hit on the wooden roof
Watch your steps
The rusted iron pieces on the way

In the marshy monsoon land
A not-so-damaged shoe
Whose pair has been lost
A journey where there’s no return

The house is beautiful
To those who can lie down wherever
Oh oh the house is beautiful
The smell of fried green grams and ripe bananas…

The old tree leaning to the earth
Like the tower of Pisa
Cut it off, cut it off
Everyone said
No! Let’s restore the tree with cowdung

How old are you?
Memories old
The rain-wet pilgrims
Ascending the Goddess hills at Kudajadri
The wind-shattered umbrella
Visions of the monkeys

A house is no house
Without the cat mother
Sleeping by the earthen stove
The night is no night
If you missed that conversation
Between the cat and the dog
Of the rat’s fur falling

As memories flow like the silken feathers of Appooppan thaadi1
The house is so beautiful

1. Lit. Grandpa’s beard-  Appooppanthaadi, known as woolly pod in English, is a thin, cotton-like structure that covers the seeds of some plants such as milk weeds. 

To read more poems by the same author, click here

About the Author

 

Sreekala Sivasankaran is a poet, author and villagezen living in Kottayam, Kerala, India. She writes fiction and poetry, in Malayalam, English, Hindi and Hebrew. Her poems have been published in various forums and magazines. Her books of poetry “Samayathinte Manaltharikal” (Malayalam), ” Veedu Thirike Ethunnu”, “You Walk with Me”, “Dream of the Butterflies”, and “Stranded” and her stories, “Pink Mothers and the White Monk”, “Two Stories” and “Amaltas Spring” are available on Amazon.