The peacock
sits high up on the metal giant
quivering
beak, catching the tremors in the air
The wise
old tree felled on the rocky ground; watching,
dark skin
wizened and papery; sap drying
counting
its limbs become machine-cut cylinders
one
concentric circle for every year
it had braved;
against storms, lightning, even drought
What have
the brick and mortar Titans wrought...
The skies
look down on the cringing edges
of the
feeble hollow of water
helpless
and parched;
a mother with
dry breasts,
vehement white
clouds and borewells
clamouring
to evict the fish;
swimming between
the coloured plastic bags
in the lake’s
own scanty tears.
The woman; wearing
the heavy crown
of creation
and nurture; guilty in her supremacy
Flinches at
the quiver of the chainsaw in her remote hands
retches drinking
from safe, labelled bottles
With visions
of her children; dry-tongued
and looking
at extinct trees; frozen in huge cylinders of ethyl alcohol
She stands trembling;
in her tall tower
the defeated
earth crumbling under her feet.
-Anuradha Venkatnarayan
