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| Neera Kashyap |
DROWNED OUT
On this dark choppy sea verging on fury, what do I hold to?
Is it a reef or shoal or rock or boat, this thing that is straw in the wind?
Or is it the dimly visible light of the lighthouse rippling dark and light
on the waves?
I can’t take my eyes off it, this occult thing flashing on and off as it circles.
When the fury comes, it is a tide that drowns as I sputter out this death breath.
The marrow in my bones is a tide of fear, heaving cold, brown and bloodless.
A spiky starfish washed up on my arm falls off with my body’s tremors.
When the light points to me, it turns red – red for a warning of rocks and reefs.
I say to the light, to the whole lighthouse, to plough out, to take me in its arms.
To this ancient beacon tower rising above all – shore and sea - a prayer.
A vast nothingness – no light, no sea, no sound, no fear.
As if the mind has drowned.
Between sleep and waking something seeps through like sea water,
not choppy but still, not mucky but clear.
Something that not even dawn dare interfere with.
RIOTS
A riot outside my
door.
Rage and bloodshed.
A riot within me.
Rage and bloodshed.
What if I hold its fury, its pain?
Slowly…slowly… distance it as if to watch it.
Even when it’s rage is invisible.
Gently let it go.
Watch it flow back from where it came.
Will it mitigate the riot outside?
The rage and bloodshed?
Rage and bloodshed.
A riot within me.
Rage and bloodshed.
What if I hold its fury, its pain?
Slowly…slowly… distance it as if to watch it.
Even when it’s rage is invisible.
Gently let it go.
Watch it flow back from where it came.
Will it mitigate the riot outside?
The rage and bloodshed?
Neera
Kashyap
has worked in the field of social and health communications. She has published
a book for young adults, Daring to Dream (Rupa & Co.) and contributed
to several prize-winning anthologies for children. Her work as a writer of
short stories, poetry (including haikai), book reviews and essays has appeared
in several international and Indian literary journals and poetry anthologies.
Internationally, her poetry has been published in journals in the US, UK,
Europe and Singapore. In India, the journals include RIC Journal, The Wise
Owl Art, Teesta Review, Outlook India, Rhetorica Quarterly, Yugen Quest Review,
The Punch Magazine, Chipmunk & Indian Cultural Forum. She lives
in Delhi.
Superbly depicted interplay of the wild rushing whirling world and the individual who tosses, watches, and sometimes enters the free space that permeates all.
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