January sun
another morning another theatre of impunity another threat of war smoke and fire ballooning over yet another skyline I rise at dawn and the light — the odd light is just January sun and waning wolf-moon — relief tastes of regurgitated despair. But we are territorial creatures. Run-of-the-mill. Big cats walk their perimeter depositing scent markers. Dragonflies are border guards with wings. Dung piles are walls. Whale song declares presence. Breaching is a broadcast message. Evolution-approved behaviour for survival. Predator and prey in the delicate two-step of creation. Everything in balance. Everything we need. But this is a different jungle. Want is generated. Death is industrialized. Reason is invented. Consent is manufactured. Complicity is designed. Truth is synthesized. This too, they say, is for survival. Recently, we tracked three tiny amur falcons migrating thousands of kilometres from Manipur across the Arabian sea to Africa. But they are only visitors, fleeing a homeland winter. Grateful for the warmth. Grateful for the food. Soon, they will return home. Taking to the open, boundless skies. The width of the ocean, the breadth of the firmament, theirs. If you listen hard, in the quiet shade of a March afternoon, a native bird in the Okavango delta, foraging for insects, will perhaps, for a moment, absent-mindedly start humming their song.
#Poetry
I like the way you are putting us in the context of larger Nature.
Such a powerful, deeply awakened poem — illuminated by the light of a winter sun.
I was especially moved by the ending lines:
If you listen hard, in the quiet shade
of a March afternoon,
a native bird in the Okavango Delta,
foraging for insects, will perhaps,
for a moment,
absent-mindedly
start humming their song.
They linger beautifully — tender, attentive, and full of quiet hope.