Poetry: Animal Kingdom and I

Sukrita Paul Kumar, the guest editor of Indian Literature, the bi-monthly journal of the Sahitya Akademi, presents a selection of her new poetry

I am a Tortoise

I am inside the shell

The crushing mass of humanity (Shutterstock)

hard and so protective

my neck so fragile

I keep it pulled back

secure under a canopy

iron strong

Away from

chitter chatter

battling voices

clanging swords

thundering clouds

I am a happy tortoise

A bearing of steel

over a body

woolly and soft with

a soul that never dies

Don’t I have to carry

The whole earth on my back

***

Pregnant with memory (Shutterstock)

I am an Elephant

I know not when

I took a turn

in the womb of my mother

I know the moments

when I howled

as I came out

of the floating paradise

I am an elephant

pregnant heavily with

that memory

moment on moment

In search forever

for the lost bliss

Hanging on hope

as the peg

of memory

***

A spec in this humongous universe (Shutterstock)

I am an Ant

A spec in this

humongous universe

That’s the grain of truth I carry

heavy on my fragile back

With the ant behind

one behind another

the line is long

the journey short

but arduous

It falls again

and yet again

rolled back over and over

many times over

The goal is visible but

never reached

I am an ant

I keep going

***

I open my eyes wide (Shutterstock)

I am a Monkey

I see you put your finger

on your lips

I raise my finger too

put it on my lips

Your chatter goes on

mine stops

You close your eyes

to lynching, to murder

to rape

I open my eyes wide

to what you are blinded

***

P.S.

I am a Human

Someone who hears

what they say,

Someone

who has no

realisation of self

as they do

***