Poetry: Shanta Acharya

Shanta Acharya

GRANT US

Grant us the wisdom to survive

like trees that live long, enriching the planet –

loyal protectors of the realm, standing firm, 

asking nothing in return of heaven or earth.

Grant us the wisdom to imagine

like oysters transforming grit into pearl –

the need to give and forgive, not merely receive,

the giving growing, becoming something precious.

Grant us the wisdom to rejoice

a long time after we are returned to earth, the lives 

we leave behind may cherish the fruits of our action –

a million species saved from extinction.

Grant us the wisdom to love –

love without limit, love that casts a widening

circle of light for the world to walk forward in,

singing the songs of its forgotten springs.

Grant us the wisdom to pray –

pray to set right the injustices we perpetuate,

courage to change the things that must be changed,

else there will be nothing left to live for.

***

INSTINCT

– reefs sway in all their splendour,

forests of filigreed corals pulsing with colour –

– reclusive creatures, neither plant nor animal

in caves, canyons, valleys of the deep in thrall –

– male seahorses flee, flashing trails of amber,

sharing secrets we are slow to decipher –

– giant arapaima swim among piranhas,

their mineralised scales a massive shield –

– dolphins with X-ray vision, peer

inside the stomach of sharks just for a laugh –

– catfish, big swinging tongue, taste prey from afar,

colossal squids digest food with their brains –

– seaweeds sigh when air rushes into their fold,

sea serpents soar on tides, bodies streamlined –

– turtles, octopi, starfish, sea urchins, jellyfish,

even the modest plankton displays a mind of its own –

– dragonfish hunt in the inky depths of seas,

submarine volcanoes light a ring of fire –

– the ebb and flow of waves and tides is nothing 

but energy passing through water, unceasing –

– creation offers a fleeting vision of perfection,

the innocence and purity, the resilience of instinct –

***

LONELINESS

A professional assassin, strikes without warning,

works with exaggerated slowness and precision,

plays a game of cat-and-mouse, leaving me

stunned in a tangle of nerves as it sucks the energy 

out of me, flicking my days like images on a screen –

menacing lions ready to drag me into oblivion

when the jungle morphs with flashes of lightning,

and loneliness shows me things I’d never seen –

past and future unfurling in ways unimagined,

my days measured in blister packs of agony.

Lying under the duvet, grief torn, I marvel 

at shafts of light that lean in like angels of mercy.

For a brief moment dust appears luminescent,

glowing fireflies dancing in the light.

***

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Setu, August 2023