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

Two poems by Smitha Sehgal

Smitha Sehgal (Delhi, India)

 

Malabar Gliding Frog

 

door to the patio

opens to cinnamon tree

a gliding frog intercepts

quiet, lithe, 

blending on the brown bark

it isn’t that we have never met 

the bulge of heavy-lidded eyes, singular betrayal

of plantain leaves, tap of a woodpecker

‘there’ I point ‘there, towards the hedge’

that noon I discover—

I am the trespasser

Bird Sanctuary

My brother, the flamingo turned lion keeper 

feeds piranhas, “from the Amazon river”

he says, they crowd around a chunk of flesh, later 

disappears into the hay stacked dimly lit birth-

room. On the white of his palm, blind, 

raw skin, new life, outside 

the summer of tortoise, we beam.

Each journey unravels the joy of a seed 

tapping into the sunlight of fruit trees. Early 

winter he comes down with sallow skin, lichens growing

on his eyebrow. Pathology reports rumble he is a 

returning flamingo. In the corridor, white noise

bird squawk, and bough of leaves flutter. Shrouded in ochre- 

white feathers, a bird in deep meditation on 

a pyre, fanning flame wings into the twilight sky

before softly taking off. It rained all night.

 

Smitha Sehgal is a legal professional from India. She writes poetry in two languages: English and Malayalam. Her poems have been featured in contemporary literary publications Usawa Literary Review, Madras Courier, Panoply, Shot Glass Journal and elsewhere.

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