Ferocious machines, roaring giants
Metal to metal, stone on stone
Hooded men shouting commands
of sedentary gods perched
at air-cooled havens in capitals
away from smoke soot
deafening noise parching heat
River’s flow smells extinction,
spawning the big dam
Hamlets awaiting submergence
shudder at pounding thuds
of each massive strokes
ripping the horizon.
Deserted villages fall mute
at silent tears of its people
on exodus, casting back
that lingering last look
Prophetic cats, the see-all mystics -
they have vanished.
In the mountains they feel free,
fleeing flood to come.
A lone buffalo, lame and infirm,
left behind, grazes fields forlorn
blinking primordial eyes
registering nothing.
Fledglings, nestling in bushes
watch uneasy activities around
unnatural, boding ill:
fear death by water.
Huts, awaiting razing,
pine for knocking at the doors
announcing the elders to enter
and children to ‘behave’.
Fields, wild with weeds
mourn departed tiny feet
trampling its dawn and dusk:
playground at their behest.
Unseen ancestral spirits,
blessing their brood,
sob unheard in the shades, downcast:
they cannot leave.
Where have they gone, the evicted?
Did they simply vanish?
Are they brewing storms that
one day would storm capitals?
What befell the lass, fearing loss
of young love, dared death?
Did she find her heart’s content
singing in some strange land?
Where would they go, the forefathers?
Into oblivion? Come shimmering
above vast expanse of the flood
on the day for the dead?*
*(‘Day for the dead’ is a weak translation for Sanskrit ‘Shraadham’, which implies the day of rituals to commemorate the dead ancestors and give them yearly homage)
Metal to metal, stone on stone
Hooded men shouting commands
of sedentary gods perched
at air-cooled havens in capitals
away from smoke soot
deafening noise parching heat
River’s flow smells extinction,
spawning the big dam
Hamlets awaiting submergence
shudder at pounding thuds
of each massive strokes
ripping the horizon.
Deserted villages fall mute
at silent tears of its people
on exodus, casting back
that lingering last look
Prophetic cats, the see-all mystics -
they have vanished.
In the mountains they feel free,
fleeing flood to come.
A lone buffalo, lame and infirm,
left behind, grazes fields forlorn
blinking primordial eyes
registering nothing.
Fledglings, nestling in bushes
watch uneasy activities around
unnatural, boding ill:
fear death by water.
Huts, awaiting razing,
pine for knocking at the doors
announcing the elders to enter
and children to ‘behave’.
Fields, wild with weeds
mourn departed tiny feet
trampling its dawn and dusk:
playground at their behest.
Unseen ancestral spirits,
blessing their brood,
sob unheard in the shades, downcast:
they cannot leave.
Where have they gone, the evicted?
Did they simply vanish?
Are they brewing storms that
one day would storm capitals?
What befell the lass, fearing loss
of young love, dared death?
Did she find her heart’s content
singing in some strange land?
Where would they go, the forefathers?
Into oblivion? Come shimmering
above vast expanse of the flood
on the day for the dead?*
*(‘Day for the dead’ is a weak translation for Sanskrit ‘Shraadham’, which implies the day of rituals to commemorate the dead ancestors and give them yearly homage)
