What if we do not go to the Forests
Sivakami Velliangiri
What if we do not go to the Forests, the Forest will come to us
Did I tell you we started our summer,
and because we are cooped up,
we do not know the Fahrenheit.
After breakfast, I hung the laundry,
and looked up at the sky.
Changes were taking place.
Unusual cries of birds, unseen flashes of wings.
A woodpecker on the tip of an Arasa maram.
Who would find the gatekeepers of the forest, here?
Napping in my daughter’s room, dusk
invades the sky, a galatta of clouds, closing
and clearing brings an evening with showers.
We are at our living room balcony, trees
from our neighbour’s house lend their branches
to our apartment; the rains bring the forest view.
My daughter says, only yesterday I thought about woodpeckers
and when am I going to see one? There are other birds
I cannot recall the names of.
Harbinger weather! Do miracles happen?
Sivakami Velliangiri
Sivakami Velliangiri is a senior poet, born in Madras and brought up at Trivandrum, and now living in Chennai.
When Sivakami Velliangiri was Sivakami Ramanathan she published her poems in Youth Times. After coming to Chennai she published in various literary journals. Professor Srinivasa Iyengar included her among the women poets in his ’History of Indian Writing in English’(1980). She is Founder Member and Co-Coordinator of ‘The Quarantine Train,’ an online Poetry Workshop of Lockdown, curated by Arjun Rajendran. Her online Chapbook ‘In My Midriff’ was published by Lily Literary Review.
‘How We Measured Time’ is her debut poetry book.