Poems on the theme: Water at YK Antiques

Like Water, we flowed into the beautiful YK Antiques and ensconced into the crevices of a piece of history. The visit of our founding members from Kolkata, Surela and Ananya, were like cool water on a parched day and the event was memorable with several guests who made their entry into our meet for the first time. Here are a few pictures (more pictures, here) from the Reading, followed by few poems:

Poetry 

Losing like Water
by Ananya Sarkar

Water knows how to be lost
Puddles run dry
The river merges into the sea
Which becomes the ocean
And the tears streaking my face at the dead of night
Leave no trace when the day creeps in.

Water knows how to be lost
Snaking its way through the forest
Losing itself in the heart of the wild,
Giving itself up to become wispy clouds
Light, white and floating
Or heavy and grey bellied
Waiting to pour and amaze the world beneath.

Water knows how to be lost
But does it like that?
Can it choose?
I will never know...

But instead of finding myself
On the plateau of right and wrong
I would like to learn the art of losing
Like water that knows how to be lost.

 

Saltwater
By Jobeth Ann Warjri


The day we met,
ocean embraced sky:
two black figures
daring the wind to sweep our aches over
surf, sand and liquid sun.
But only
earthbound camels lifted our burdens
and left us free like sea urchins
scouring the salt-depth
for some star-lit belonging
forever.


Can Water Purify/ To Clean a Flowing River
By Surela C


I realized after much contemplation,
That once comes alone to the world and leaves alone.
What good they have done is remembered by few,
Who choose to acknowledge.
As the ashes flow down the mighty river, obviously only
the good will be talked about.

The bad that remains unsaid, is not forgotten.
As curious relatives and neighbours gather around the now
lifeless body, they talk about the soul it once carried.

The soul still retains its gender, for they ask whether he or she
received their last drop of water from the son, grandson or daughter.

They nod in approval, when they hear it was the son or
grandson who quenched the final thirst of the dying soul.

They say ‘how fortunate he or she was?”
They compete to show how close they were to the now dead soul,

But maybe there was no one to celebrate them when alive.
They enquire about their leftover wealth, and who will be its rightful heir,

While the now lifeless body is cast to fire.
The then body which once moved, dance and sang now turned to dust
In matters of hours.

The flowing waters that carry the ashes of the dead to the unknown, believed to be paradise.
Can it cleanse the biasness borne out of centuries of conditioning?

The flowing river too needs to be cleaned even if it provides spiritual
succor to millions,
Just like our souls need to be cleansed and polished.

It needs to be dredged to remove sediments of anachronistic beliefs,
and replaced by the new.

For change is the only the constant factor, as the earth revolves around.


The lake in Milwaukee
By Nivedita N


The lake in Milwaukee
Isn’t like the ones in our city

here, the lake hasn’t spoken to me

But I am adamant!
I want to know this city

One summer, I visit the lake in the evening
it murmurs in hues of blue
when the boats are resting
on the wobbly waters
Another summer day,
When the lake’s still
I watch as a father teaches his son to fish

Like a friend whom I wish to know
Every day to the lake I go
We don’t speak much – I just stand
It’s lilt I try to understand
It remains calm too
Perhaps acquainting a person new

One summer morning,
I visit a café nearby
And head to the benches by the lake
reading poems,
sitting with it all day long.
As the sun sets,
the lake splashes me
Whispering,
to each other we belong.

That Ancient Substance
By Pujita

Out the mouth of a deep internal cave,
Seeping through interlocking roots,
Appears that ancient substance,
Darkened and Distilled to its cellular truths;

Winding its way apologetically,
Unobtrusive unguent to all that it passes,
This liquid force of primitive life,
Wetting smooth round stones and tall grasses,

Gushes and gurgles when it has the chance,
Like a young girl peeping out the door;
Rushing to the trysting throes of romance,
Holds back, all of a sudden, as on cue;

No longer a gambol,
mature now and still,
Glides gentle, resigned to a changing fate,
emptying its own into the great fill.


Every Water
By Sri Vaishnavi

The enormity of the extent that engulfs the eerie shrieks trampling in the mind,
Gashing about and swallowing within itself,
Every whim, every fancy and feel of a similar kind...

The waves, resplendent with stark blue hues, white froth, and shingling, crashing sounds...
Numb down every thought, like a deep brown, fluttery moth...

The flow of the ebb and the tide,
Pregnant with the timeless truths of life's highs and lows,

Smudge the eyelashes with many other primordial facets, so much that the head just bows...
In your every form of finesse,
You come stacked with lessons...

As a tear,
You demolish the boundaries of joy and despair...
As an ingredient in a glass,
You signify fullness and emptiness...

As a young river,
You gallop untowardly into a life of your own...moving on from every hindrance...

As a lake,
You symbolize stillness, settled-ness and serene silence...

As a frozen giant,
You postulate the bestness of time immemorial and riches far richer than fuel...

As a virile deltaic strand,
You stand for the fecund fertility of everything...

And as yourself, you give the best lesson,
Of self-moulding, camouflaging within and unto every surface and shape that you ever touch...

And perhaps, that's why you're called 'Liquid Life',

Because there is no life without you,

And also because you in your own metaphor are 'Life itself'...

River of time

By Hima Bindu

As tears gather
In my eyes
I still remember
Your words dear
That no matter
Whatever
happens today or tomorrow or
In a year
Whatever situations we come
Across wherever
We always have to remember
That nothing is constant forever
Nothing stays forever
As well as
Nothing lasts forever
Except your bond with me dear
Because it is like time
Limitless & boundless
Flowing on and on like a river

 

Let’s be ‘aqua’nimous…

– Atreya Sarma U

Up or down, underground or overground, inside or outside –

Be it in the form of a liquid or ice, mist or snow, vapour, rain or drain;

It’s the sap of life – of humans, flora and fauna together.

It’s the water unique that irrigates our crops,

Provides and prepares our food, and slakes our thirst.

And it cleans our bodies, gadgets, and the dirt all over.

While the virtuous sweat of our brow yields the desired fruits;

The tears of joy and grief that well up in our eyes and hearts

Rejuvenate us with a salubrious and buoyant catharsis

As we enjoy the nectarine avatar of water in the realm of blooms.

It’s the water that creates peninsulas exquisite and islands exotic.

Also, it’s a medium of transport that isn’t exorbitant.

Water is one of the inseparable five elements

The others being the earth, fire, wind and sky

Sans which we have no existence whatsoever.

So, let’s be ‘aqua’nimous

And salute, protect and use the precious water

In harmony with the rest of the precious elements

Without blaming it for spells of drought or flood

And without mudding the waters and creating watery graves

For then only we and the rest of life can be in our element.

Hindi Poetry

 जल

श्रेय रॉडरिक्स 

जीवन की कड़ी है जुड़ी
समुद्र से, हर जलाशय तक मुड़ी।
पहला बीज अंकुरित हुआ
और उद्भव सृष्टि का हुआ।
पाया आयुष्य-
प्रकाश-अंधकार के संग,
हरियाली-धरती बने उसके अंग।

पंच तत्वों में समाहित
सिलसिला- मानव, पशु-पक्षी सहित।

जल में जीवन, जीवन में जल
बन लहर-तरंग बहता कल-कल।
जब मानव ने ढाया क़हर
हुई बेरोकटोक हरेक लहर।
अशुद्ध हुआ निर्मल जल
रौद्र रूप में उथल-पुथल
स्वर्ग से उतरा क्रोध अविरल,
सिंधु-सा विस्तृत और अथाह
मचाया भीषण हाहाकार।

कर्तव्य बने हमारा संरक्षण
संचय, सचेत मनोभाव धरण
जल से ही है सबका पोषण
अनमोल है इसका कण-कण।

आज तुमसे है जीवन दान
कोटि-कोटि है तुझे प्रणाम!
बह जाऊँगी राख बन इसमें
जब होगा मेरा अवसान।

 

Translation:

Water

 

The first seed planted

in the ocean’s womb,

Found expanse with light and darkness,

Soil, vegetation,birds, animals, humans—

Life took its origin.

Susurration of sea waves,

Ripples of river, dancing raindrops,

Surge of waterfalls or 

Burble of a garden fountain-

Musical aura so vivid.

 

 

Vitality flowing in

rivers,lakes, waves and ripples,

Man as insurgent

Encroached forcibly,

Restricting it’s course,

Cause of impurities in unsullied.

Heaven’s wrath-

Surging waters, swelling banks,

Cry of sorrow in the wails of

oceans and brooks.

 

Nurturing nature, 

Conscious of this component,

One of five elements-

Holding all ecological processes.

Each drop is invigorating.

This blue universe 

 one of it’s kind where

water is our home

before our birth

and after we die.