Teesta Review: A Journal of Poetry, Volume 1, Number 1. May 2018. ISSN: 2581-7094
This
River
--- Deepa Agarwal
No
boats ply on this river
whether
to ferry people or rescue them.
Never
have and never will
only
the flimsy boat of memory
skids
over the rocks on which we perched once.
This
river…how we raced through the dim forest
to
reach it, eager feet unconscious of the miles
we
traversed to gaze upon the indolent flow
that
embraced the smoothness of once jagged stones
it
had been patiently polishing to the roundness
of
a mother’s fecund breast, for centuries perhaps.
This
river…how dreamy the afternoons we spent
lounging
on its rocky shores
its
waters massaging our feet.
Only
once we exclaimed
at
the relentless greed of the millstream
that
seized my small brother’s toy crocodile
and
swept it away to some unknown destination.
This
river took what it wanted.
It
had never nurtured a crocodile
in
its depths, only insidious, invisible whirlpools
that
turned a father’s beard white
drove
him from the town
when
he could no longer bear to drink
the
waters gushing from his taps,
waters
tainted with his son’s dying breath
the
same waters that lured a boy
into their deadly embrace when an
afternoon’s sport
became fatal indulgence.