By Sheikha A.
Three eyes inside the vortex,
an ocean eludes into a well –
suspended blackness – hole
as carrion of extinct fish –
and birds with body intangible
like a story in a song of fallen
leaves. Trees sapping roots –
limbs of lakes stretching wide
and the skin of photon rays
shedding as particles of dew;
the culmination of an eternal
night brews in the iron of soil –
earth:water ratio, hegemonic
cycle of misuse. Falling birds
like dead raindrops; eyes break
from the head of the sky, over
and over, opening then closing.
Ocean recedes like an oyster;
tropical skull pushes forth from
a blue sphere. Rain is rusting
birds; a tree with wings builds
a nest. Hours melt into the soil;
time is vapour alight of blooms –
waves of fireflies flame the night –
What are your thoughts on the kind of world we are leaving for the next generation?
Growing up in a concrete jungle environment, it has been easy to overuse and take for granted all of the facilities readily available, paying no heed to what was destroyed in order to create materials that have made human life easy. Nature/environment, in its wide sense, is disposable and we being a part of it are just as much disposable to it too. We have forgotten that we are. We have been taking and taking from something that we somehow presumed would never retaliate. There is need for pause and reflection and inverting our usage of the environment. Every purchase that we make should automatically strike a question within ourselves about how it will be discarded after use, what its life-line is, where its graveyard is, and how quickly will that graveyard decompose (for a new life-cycle). If the answers to these questions don't lead to satisfactory discoveries, we ought to re-think our purchases altogether.
What was the inspiration for your creative work?
The poem Slowed-Down Blackbird by Alice Oswald has haunting, gripping imagery that inspired my poem The Iris of Atlas.
