Of a hungry crow but no god
Only the sound of sunlight spilling madly on the silence: shadows carved on worn tiles splattered with pigeon droppings. And a lone crow with what is left of a chicken-mayo sandwich — still in its plastic wrapper. The story sinks into an empty bench. Formless, now that it has been told. Used. A story about water fleeing from its source. About being. Being — only because of the fleeing. About becoming a river. About the impossibility of stopping. About turning to salt. Something about life that is no longer linear. Or living. Time shuffling cards. (The house always wins. Doesn’t it?) The persistent question of leaving. As if arrival is an absolute. At its mouth, has the river arrived or left? What do we say after everything has been said? And we are still standing? Where does it go, the night that has passed? So much of life becomes incoherent outside the present. Reality melting into irretrievable abstract. Into pointless swirl. Let’s say a god led me here by the hand. Or a goodness did. Or a goodbye. At the end of a road that is not a road, there is a fork. Both paths lead here. Where you stand so close that the distance between us can never be bridged. Where do gods go, once they are gone? Where do we? The crow bites into its lunch. Looks around, caws loudly. Claiming. Warning. Its beak is wide open, stained.
#Poetry
Hi dear Rajani
Some wonderful questions here.....
"Something about life that is no longer linear."
Your poem is not linear - it starts with the crow, travels elsewhere, then circles back to it.
After the crow, there is the river - meant in part as a metaphor for life? And I love the question: "At its mouth, has the river arrived or left?" I suppose the answer is both.
When I think of a river - and knowing that you write from your home country - I cannot help but think of Mother Ganga, on her journey from the Himalaya to the ocean, but even rivers are not linear either - at least not in the broader sense. All water - eventually - is recycled, evaporated up into clouds only to fall again, somewhere. At any one moment there will be water in every river which has been there before, and is now there again, travelling on.....
And in this way, over geological time, every river is also one river. There will be water molecules in the river which flows past my home in Australia which - long ago - also journeyed down Mother Ganga.
I just discussed this with Meg, and she reminds me - of course - that the same is true for the water within us. Each of us is a little reservoir of water, temporarily diverted from a river, but still inevitably part of the vast water cycle..... moving on.....
As you say : "So much of life becomes
incoherent outside the present" - that "bubble" of the present that we live within - and we look backwards from it through the often unreliable window of memory, or forwards through the kaleidoscope of possible futures.
I do love your summation:
"At the end of a road that is not a road,
there is a fork. Both paths lead here.
Where you stand so close that the
distance between us can never be
bridged. Where do gods go, once
they are gone? Where do we?"
Where indeed....
The crow does not care.
Best Wishes - Dave :)
I really enjoyed this poem, Rajani.
I like these lines especially:
"Where does it go, the night that has
passed? So much of life becomes
incoherent outside the present. Reality
melting into irretrievable abstract."
I also like that the crow got to have their sandwich. ;)