A journal of art + literature engaging with nature, culture, the environment & ecology

Boat Safari

Preeth Ganapathy, Bengaluru, India

 

The long endless road—

unpeopled, holds the weight of the sky

and the scent of the mountains.

 

Ponds emerge unexpectedly on the sides,

green and brown, 

turn blue, tinged with the colour of dawn.

 

The temple glows

in the calm light of its reflection 

on the backwaters.

 

The clouds smoke up in the mist,

the music of crickets 

ring through half-formed dreams.

 

The gossip of ten ashy woodswallows

settles on the wingspan of silence.

 

The lake is sprinkled 

with barren leafless trees—

their tips housing families 

of Indian cormorants 

that spread out their black feathers

under a new-born sun.  

 

The conversations of a lonely hill mynah

echo through the islands,

the jungle,

the water,

the wind.

 

The ripples peter out

and calm settles on the waters

like mist thawing 

in tune with the slow-paced music 

of the crocodile bark tree. 

 

Preeth Ganapathy's works have been published in several magazines including Atlas and Alice, Origami Poems Project, Amethyst Review, Loch Raven Review and Mothers Always Write. She is also the winner of Wilda Moriss's July 2020 Poetry Challenge. She lives in Bengaluru, India.

Forest over limestone

Ameek