Flood
This flood is not of storms and turbulences
but of a steady seeping
over days of ceaseless rain
ignored as but the discharge
of an over-heavy season.
Drop by drop it has gathered
in tomorrow’s reservoirs
until this moment's breach.
Spilling, it has filled all shallows.
Time’s river, swollen past containing
laps at the doorstep,
flows silently over the sills
of glances, skyward and seaward turned,
for signs of cyclones and tidal waves.
These are not wind-blown rains
whose flailing but quickly-wearied arms
knock down houses that rise again, groaning
upon their own rubble, break off trees
whose wailing stumps grin green
at sight of sun.
This flood is not importunate.
It does not clamour, or threaten.
But it will enter.
Once within, the creeping damp will rot
all bricks, beams, barricades,
dissolve all record and reminiscence
to settle down as silt
in fresh deltas, where the river meets
the ardent surf, and breeds
new growths, nourishes new populations.
****
Forecast
Tomorrow there will be no sun.
The clouds we have seeded
Are bearing fruit.
The whirlwind we have summoned up
We cannot put back into
Time’s broken bottle.
Flung into trackless space
We shall not see our way
Even by the best light
Of our brightest books.
The last of the senses
To give up the ghost
Will be the tongue, silenced
By the taste of ashes
As the bombs explode.
Our fate? It’s too soon to say.
If know we must, it could be
That we’re on our way
To circumambulate some other solar fire.
For we are, after all, survivors.
When death has wrenched from us breath’s final gust,
We still shall clench in burning fists
An irreducible ember of desire.
But for now, the picture’s clear:
It’s ashes to ashes, and dust to dust.
by Vasantha Surya
suryavasantha @gmail.com
