The Landscape of Distancing and Uncertainty
At the moment, my poetic process hinges entirely upon my involvement in the world of bird photography. The analysis of the supposed dissonance between the verbal and the visual takes up a lot of my time.
I have always found it a struggle to yoke together the diverse worlds of bird photography and poetry. In the last decade, my study of bird species, taxonomy, habitat, etc. has led to a strange obsession with naming, with knowing. Because my poetry deals primarily with distancing and uncertainty — un-knowing, if you will — this dependence on meticulous accuracy had to be addressed/negotiated.
In the past couple of years, my enquiries have also moved inward. I am looking at questions of mobility, slowing down, distancing and detachment, and meaning as approximation in new ways.
Lockdown Birding
I caught a glimpse of you
in the garden, quickly masked.
a buried breeding.
The babbler turns the afternoon to a frown.
You moved fast.
Your limbs tore apart
the fade of my sleep.
Your love grew amphibian.
The oleander reveals the sunbird.
Remember I had touched
your pebbly back
all those years ago.
The starling shifts to rosiness.
I feared the disease of grass.
Perhaps you will flick out
your tongue and catch
the darting fly
of my lips.
The barbet drums through the day.
The rain disappears into the dust.
I glance sideways, cornering breath.
Unedited Version of the Final Tale of Forgetfulness, Complete with a Moral
Traces of forgetting
create dust spurs
of eyes crawling
with wounds and beckoning finger
tail.
“Come here”
he says
bending backwards
and swallowing
his knots
making a meal
of his tail.
He hides
in furtive places
during the rains
waiting
for my overlooked toes.
And I wear
his malice hanging
from my ears
perfect conjectures brushing
my shoulders.
The Manjha-maker
He says August is his month.
In the south wind
facing the rain, his fingers
layered with grime
and glue, he collects his pain
and his tools. Threads, shards
of glass, rice starch,
smell of blood, a flower bud
he won’t name, some mud.
He mixes a mystery, tells me
a story of his fathers
and brothers. He says
they made him wise
and taught him skills
of clawing at skies.
He grinds and spins all his truths
together to cut a kite,
reduce it
until it flaps, grows bigger
and lesser
and stays splattered
on the soil.
He arouses the limp string
with his hands of glass and crafts
an arc marked by dirt. Then he
coaxes a bite
into cotton white.
On Certain Uncertain Days
I change
into a painted, old woman
ceaselessly trimming her nails.
I slant a little
towards the light. I shift
my head a little.
My shoulders linger
hooked over my hands.
I turn into a brown crumple
of cloth, roll into a crease
of background white, spin
into the dark of wall.
I become a single-minded furrowing
of thought, a line of flesh
diagonally across the canvas
of rhyme. I curve
into the stubborn progress
of fingers, the discord
between the edge and the eye.
The Artist at Basgo Gompa Spoke Thus:
“Notice how my lines
harvest these uneven flowers.
My chalks arrange energy.
They are full-grown: these demons
and gods in my eyes.
Ready for my poor tools,
dirt-laden days
and the frost of winter.
They are ready to soar out of me
in circles: concentric ones, yes.
Yes, you’re right.
I see you’re familiar
with my work. Notice
this ellipsis here. I need the skill
of cicadas to coat all gaps.
My camel hair brushes cannot pace
far enough through all spaces.
And my poster paints… alas,
too dull for the cosmos.
I don’t sweat here; I don’t shiver.
My fingers have been blessed
with breath, with ritual stabs
of clarity and depth.
Soon, my name will fly
like the dust, the colours will wilt.”
The essay and the poems are part of our Poetry Special Issue (January 2022), curated by Shireen Quadri. © The Punch Magazine. No part of this essay or the poems exclusively featured here should be reproduced anywhere without the prior permission of The Punch Magazine.
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