FishTales

Hanna and Montana now swim

Small, red but with silver rim

Made to keep minds without storm

Glass jar with a green is their new home.

Water in my pond ripples with their tails

No cat wants catching the guppies fail

You are free and see the birds up in the sky

A floating world, though you never will fly.

No water ever remains the same

Fish came fish went always tame

Swimming with many merry bubbles

Ornaments for evenings to forget troubles.

Much in holy texts about fish

They now have a desperate wish

Enough of the microplastics in their gills

Man and animal sure it will kill.

Fish not in the sky, not watching what goes below

Not on earth fighting for those many honours hollow

Make its eyes see only the secret swim of the jellyfish

Let its ears echo gentle waves that hit the shore and splash.

Photographs Sanju Mathew Joseph Dhanush Jacob Joshua Shreya Susan Zacharia

May be an image of indoor

Mirror

Mirror knows more than what you think

It has seen the inside of your heart

Cloudy, dark often grey,

Watched your cheeks grow red

Known your eyes fill

Listened to your hushed sobs

Counted your lips quiver ,

The mirror knows it all

The mirror knows it well, perfectly.

Mirror sure will return your smile

Share the dreams that float in your eyes

Nod for the secrets that make you overjoyed,

Needs no moon of the heavens

To illuminate the mirror,

Mirror just wants you to tell such stories

That leave your eyes glistening,

Mirror listens , silent

Knows it is a lie.

But mirror smiles assuring you its faithful company,

You trust the mirror

Love the mirror,

You hate the mirror

Hit the mirror.

Mirror is you who knows you

Mirror is the pretty you, ugly you

Mirror is the smart you, broken you,

Mirror but never keeps anything in its heart,

Eyes Speak

Lips meet each other

Kiss, say goodnight

Eyes know they will speak no more

Definitely not now

Timid, red, soft

Quivering with fear,

Every word echoes

Uttered, looking at the other

As a lesser mortal.

Eyes spew red hot embers

No matter how the lips feel

The soul lets out a cry

Not blanketed in silence

Much pain it endures

Before the eyes shed tears.

Eyes make a compassionate resolve

To ignite the change setting ablaze

Remains of indifference

To those living under leafless trees

Braving the Sun that melts all valour

Lips mute themselves

Words sometimes meaningless

Useless, disagreeing, fake

Eyes shut tight

Not to see, nothing more to speak

Not to utter a syllable

As innocent blood spills on the face.

published in EKL Review e-magazine August 2022 issue

Namaste

#azadikaamritmahotsav2022

We Indians

Born in the richest of cultures

Owe our learning to the world ‘s

Enchanted treasures we hold

Our stories and songs, mountains, rivers

We Indians

Search, find the doors that face

The blue sky of peace

Safeguard it and let the Sun of wisdom

Seep bright through it on the world

We Indians

Move ahead, work hard, celebrate

Meditate on the great dreams to realize

We hurry to rise, even if we fall

We may stumble, yet progress with fortitude

We Indians

Many lives sacrificed for the nation

Motherland our soul, our breath

We need each other, hold our hearts together

Our diversity is our unity!

We Indians

Have much to provide the world

Great teachers, strong ideals

That lead the millions in all times

Women emerge, the power of the house

India is built strong

With the common man’s love

For his land dear

His toil, his wishes

For the soil his forefathers served

He struggles to make it a paradise

For generations now and next,

India is every heart beat of-

We Indians

Alert and thriving

We Proud Indians

March the path forward.

by

Sherin Mary Zacharia

Wall

Behind every wall you will find a scene

Of hardwork,sweat and blemished fingers

Trying to keep some dreams alive, ablaze

Snapshots of happiness, anger, excitement and pain

Hang themselves onto the wall

In vivid coloured frames, mirroring

Those days when everyone had lived

like everyone else.

Walls had heard numerous stories

Of success, deceit, worries about lost chances

Morning sunshine illustrating these

Walls kept many secrets, painted in dust

Plastered dreams bursted out through cracks

Memories as patches, green

New coloured spots carved in by time

Lines then new chapters

Etched with moss in faded grey crevices.

Every wall is an epic

Written over generations; unaware

Of the stories each brick longed to tell

Until they lay broken, crushed

Making room for a new wall

A wall for a new room to make new stories.

Voices of the wild

Trees around the water holes

Wild winds blow free

Carrying a roar, sometimes

a trumpet to the mountains.

Flutter of wings race with the

unruly grunts from among the green grass.

Bamboo groves lost

In creating a symphony

Pairs of colours dancing in rhythm

Butterflies in sunshine.

Cicadas never silent, the dampness

of the rain forest itch their throat.

Water falls in deafening decibels

Million droplets blanket the space.

Dear calls and a langur replies

from a tree top; a striped prowl is on

Doe eyes twitch, leap dart and the

herd flies over the meadow.

The voices of the forest turn into a music

Inviting the valley below.

They come, clear their way

Dry every dampness, machines growl

Rivers shrink in fear

New voices shiver the valley

Earth trembles, towers rise to sky

Voices reply from the mountain

Flooding rivers gush, slopes slide in mud

Crashing hills bid goodbye to the valley

Its voice is now a cry.

This poem was published in Brahmand environmental e-magazine in July 2022

BIRDS LOSE

Birds lost to the new weather

Colours washed from their feathers

Climate changed on the blue planet

Birds lost their game, trap for them is set.

Birds saw the horizon blur

A crimson Sun fade ,disappear

With a bird’s eyeview, they saw the land smoulder

No more walls to hit their heads harder

.More ducks made it to the vast sky

Earth and ponds nolonger safe, sang a spy

The ostrich buried his head deep

Loud explosions had deprived him of sleep

Parrots felt very odd, being so green

There were no treetops to be seen

Doves flew away in search of peace

Peacocks danced, tears not to cease

.Birds sensed the hour had come

The earth now a place fearsome

They flew around east and west

In a while flew off, forgetting their nest.

TOUCH OF PEACE

Waking up to the call

Of a new day, new world

Music of the wind and waves

On a shiny new shore

Below a new sky, new light

Waiting is the new life

Longing to laugh aloud.

Unrealistic are dreams

Wild imaginations

Raises hallucinations

Today miserably alone

On an orange printed water bed

None of those acrid medicines

No more the scent of cleansing lotion

Room stinks

.World mourns dead children

Old lives fear to breathe

Smoke masks the city

Sign boards point nowhere

Queues stretch there.

There is light

Must be a nurse

My fingers feel the wound

Scarring the palm

As it holds my palm.

Was it by a shrapnel

Or by an iron nailT

hat had gone deep

Into the cross.

Shakti

Mother   Goddess

Her countenance radiates energy, breath resolute

She binds her dear one in her heart, wraps with her arms

She fills to the brim, under an instinct unexplained

The anxious mind with soothing care, crisps, sauce added.

Only she can protect with seething fury

Protest to the world that lacks any empathy

Eyes open still in the night, her mind guards, plans next

Fast, she walks up mountains, learns, makes the mute a poet.

Growing for me in love; her mission, toils for all

Blossoms line the path uncured, to the sanctum sanctorum

Where anything is possible, for the will unsubmissive.

She seldom turns trifle mags; webinars beckon her with lessons.

Mundane promises fail to convince her, she seeks weapons of trust

Severing the head of trivial desires, she rides the tiger of challenges.

She is the one, the Mother Goddess, every day marks her victory

She is every mother, every special child’s mother.

2

 Myself, I Know

My mind wants to fly -over the seas and above the hills

To see gardens and windblown meadows crafted in ink

I am a girl with dreams and a song, a song in my heart

My strength, the fort my poems form, to shelter me

My mind, a fluttering bamboo leaf, slender but abrasive

A breeze caresses gently, but can it withstand a storm?

Words drip in the chaos of my thoughts, in their pile I hide, sleep long

Verses grow wings, fly around me and wake me up.

Out into the bright blue sky, I make my way

Like a flock taking the shape of a dart

Words shoot from my pen, taking me to the horizon.

They give me the power to know my own self and

Tell the world aloud; that I hear the rivers,

The murmur of every leaf, the rumbling of rocks

As I move ahead in the colourful world of words

Armed with trust in myself and the poems from my soul.