Rivery (Reverie) by Erfana
Ripples, oysters and fishermens' hats
We were river colours back then
Moving to and fro
Always wanting to dive into the waters
Never knowing how
Inside the river we found words
We counted birds and crabs and
Kept safe the grey-green karimeen
For fishers with fishing rods
And waited for the blue boat
Till it came
Toes soaked in the water she asked
"What if I jump into the river
With my frock on?"
And I said
"It would look beautiful
The frock
Flying into and out of it"
And she jumped in
The next moment
Like the river
For a long time
Was waiting for her to
And I took a photo of it
Her green frock
Growing all over the river
Like our watercolours
Or their fishing net
I know not
But it looked beautiful
And the river won't forget that ever
I thought
I held in my hand
The photo
Cause she loves photographs
Of flying floating things
And left for home
Alone and I wrote
Ripples, oysters and fishermens' hats
We were river colours back then
Moving to and fro
Always wanting to dive into the waters
Never knowing how
Jal samadhi by Ayushi Saha
Put one cup of water
For every two cups of milk
Else the chai will turn watery
Watery as the pillows
Which have sponged out
Old lovers, old friends, old songs
Old wounds that have been wrung dry
Squished out like damped towels
And hung on the city’s cloth lines
Alongside pigeons resting on hanging cable wires
Water that can drown
Schools of fishes and thoughts alike
Water in our blood
In our muscles
On our skins
And in puddles and street manholes
Water in our air
Water in our breath
In our brethren
Have memories
Muscle memories taking shape
Of the containers we put
In the first place
Muscle memories that have/speak volumes
Regardless of the containers, we fit them in
A slow drizzle
Across the curtains
A warning-sign
A well-read threat
Is water droplets slowly peppering kisses on afternoon curtains
As hostel/ hostile rains drop by
Scurrying feet scuffling
Light as a feather
Fettering fleeting fleeing
Hearts hung on a clothesline
Now damped dizzy drowning
As the city and all its girls
Twirl and twist
Clamping their feet/clothespin
Clawing their nails into
Wet soil/silk linen
Drench and dip
Dip and drown
Having tasted casualties
On thirsty tongues
Where memories of waters
Swap
swaddle
Saddle
Reining control over rains
As tongues twin with stillborn cities
Both alight ablaze aflame
Both sinking over like a revered idol, like Venice
a gruesome kali red.
I Don't Understand This Metaphor by Mayukh Dutta
As I descend from the tiring illusions of the day
And reconcile with myself on quarrels born of fatiguing hours
I find myself flowing like the river near my town
Slicing through my land, water bearing wisdom for all mortal queries.
Water has memory
The emissary of our ancestors in rivers whose land it brought and washed away
The conveyor of nature in rain proclaiming its might over brittle human existence
The book of myself in me, my blood and my tears flowing with pieces from my heart.
There is a manner in which water makes its way
Our pasts remembered through the paths they chose
We have been followers of a divergent force
Our Gods were born of the same elements our famines broke.
But water is 'my' metaphor:
The fluidity emanating from my bones
The surprising turns exclaiming my accidents of existence
The place where I dive for myself but drown instead
Water is my soul experiencing tides so high that it hits the rocks while searching for the shore.
And therefore, is my memory
Flowing, lost, happening, forgotten
Like birds during an orange sunset-
Taking flight in a rhythm while bargaining their place to rest
The flock painting the skies but
only in a momentary state of being.
Water remembers
All eyes that shed tears for the flesh they lost while light pierced through them,
The brotherhood of man that devoured on each other's dreams instead,
The innocence of the peasant whose prayers for sustenance begin before the break of dawn,
The silence of the soul that sits on the banks while the river is his crying heart,
The depths of ours, often darker than the depth of this sea.
Water is liberation
A symbolic statement of letting go,
But because water is so effortless
Becomes the reason for our incapacity to realize
That water is our pasts weaved into a fabric
The strings holding us while we hold a burning torch
This relentless flow will continue to weave
As we burn what we don't understand.