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Hello Everybody,
This is R Krishnan and I am glad to join this forum. I am interested in creative writing and am also venturing into publishing -- mainly my own works, poetry and stories for children to begin with. I also write for an adult audience but then they are not for publishing. Allow me to share a poem. Please comment on the same. Regards, RK.
Women Understand Water
Water is so precious, water is so scarce,
The women of the village know that well!
Pots balanced on their heads,
They walk long distances to the common well,
Slot the rope on the pulley and lower the bucket;
Year by year it gets deeper and deeper,
Their fear reflects in their clouded eyes as they gaze
Heavenwards with hope and a prayer,
‘Lord, let there be rain this year!’
As they pass the village shrine,
Pleading eyes adore the Lord and implore:
‘Let there be rain this year!’
Weary feet and tired arms concur;
‘Farther and farther we are forced to roam,
For fuel the twigs and faggots, for fodder the thinning grasses.
Lord, at your feet these wilting, wild flowers, the only treat at our means:
Do not deny us.’
The dry wind agitates their cholis and dupattas as they move,
Like so many dry, wind-swept leaves through the parched landscape,
Under skeletal trees bereft of shade.
Scrawny cattle scrape at wisps of grey green scrub,
Their stomachs deflated concavities against protruding ribs.
Young calves suckle on empty pouch like udders,
Stiff-legged, heads bowed, buckle at the knees,
Lie down and die.
‘Lord!’ The dry eyed women implore, at the frontiers of desperation,
Sweating tears, feeding their infants dry stale rotis
touched in salt to help moisten the chew with saliva.
Dry thunder rumbles far above like muted war drums,
As little by little the brittle thatch of their huts
Crumble into the mud below.
‘Lord!’ Parched lips and choked throats whisper, ‘Lord,
Our faith is the only crutch that keeps us erect,
And our love for the soil to which we were born:
Do not defeat us.’
Beyond the low hills the blood-soaked summer sun sinks
Wordlessly, bequeathing the world to the shadows;
And the women, thin specters crouched beside the open fires,
Stirring a pot of weak stew of wild tubers for hungry mouths,
Still survive in the shadows and refuse to fade.
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