A River
by A.K Ramanujan

In Madurai,
city of temples and poets,
who sang of cities and temples,
every summer
a river dries to a trickle
in the sand,
baring the sand ribs,
straw and women's hair
clogging the watergates
at the rusty bars
under the bridges with patches
of repair all over them
the wet stones glistening like sleepy
crocodiles, the dry ( Read more... )

Sir,

not that we did not hear the noise
        you made trying to open the bolted doors
       a robust bull elephant
       stirring in the night
       of everyone's sleep

we did. But as we fluttered inside
      like a peacock in the net
      crest broken, tail feathers flying

our good mother held us close
      in her innocence
      ( Read more... )

however we say it ( Read more... )

Why have you ( Read more... )

Father, when he passed on,
left dust
on a table of papers,
left debts and daughters,
a bedwetting grandson
named by the toss
of a coin after him,

a house that leaned
slowly through our growing
years on a bent coconut
tree in the yard.
Being the burning type,
he burned properly
at the cremation

as before, easily
and at both ends,
left his eye coins
in the ashes ( Read more... )

Really what keeps us apart
at the end of years is unshared
childhood. You cannot for instance,
meet my father. He is some years
dead. Neither can I meet yours:
he has lately lost his temper
and mellowed.

In the transverse midnight gossip
of cousins' reunions among
brandy fumes, cashews and the Absences
of grandparents, you suddenly grow
nostalgic for my past ( Read more... )