Bouldering
The boulders of Hampi cannot be left unsung.
No. They deserve their very own poem.
Very well then.
Millions of years in the making:
split by a punishing sun
and rain
blow-dried and chiselled by winds
like marbles
the boulders rolled down the hills
locating their nooks and niches,
their even-sided kith and kin.
Weapons in a fraternal feud.
Building blocks for a kingdom’s capital.
Colour and character of a landscape,
texture, fortress, witness.
Rising high on every side:
How do these small bare hands,
this small millennial mind,
grapple?
From a sequence of poems on Hampi, the capital of the Vijayanagara Empire.
Scenes from a Slum
‘I never saw an ugly thing in my life: for let the form of an object be what it may – light, shade, and perspective will always make it beautiful.’ – John Constable, 19th century English painter.
i.
When light enters the eye
see: sun
sky
slum
horizon.
See shanty
upon shanty
upon shanty
imbalanced
fractions of homes.
A halted convoy.
Yet each
an anthill of activity.
Like lovers
in evergreen glades or gardens
wisps of smoke
chase one another
upwards
languidly.
So much goes up in smoke.
So many dreams.
So many
burning nightmares.
Denied a spotlight,
a place in the sun,
who will capture them?
Who set them free?
What burns now?
A smell, acrid,
steals through the air.
Surrounded on all sides
by rubbish and bareness
a tree in an open space
flower-like,
in a gesture odd and sad,
of appeal or surrender,
has opened out its branches.
But the sky
starry eyes forever peeled
this hot autumnal day
has nothing to grant it.
A cloud slips away,
its exit breath-light, un-
premeditated.
What was in shadow shines now
with a clarity almost terrible:
See it.
ii.
A little girl clutching a scruffy
teddy bear
poised at the edge of a ditch
running
(with the rain/
from the rain/
because of it)
in the middle of the colony.
Murmuring something to the soft toy
very softly
she leaps.
Her small figure in her faded dress.
Her hair pressed against her forehead.
What gave her pause?
What took it?
* * *
Wave upon wave of massy blackness,
unwavering.
Sticks bob,
bags bob.
Bloated.
Pushed, dragged, tugged,
loosened up—
they go with the flow.
* * *
Bricolages of garbage:
ochre and cerulean,
emerald green and vermilion—
the richly hued bits we discarded from our lives—
see how they’ve reassembled.
* * *
A pipe leaks against a wall
coating it a lush green.
Walled outlines of houses,
inhabited by absence.
Confused
goats amble
as if through an enchanted forest
leaving behind a solid, if wasted, trail.
* * *
There is beauty in everything.
Can you bear it?
