Two Poems by Srikanth Kopuri

THE UNMIGRATING TRUTH
after visiting Nelapattu bird sanctuary, Nellore

This moving wing-beat transcends me
into a higher understanding

It undoes my learning
that does not know the difference

between freedom and trespassing.
There is more to understand

within the secret limits they draw
for themselves than the showy

shallowness of my fleeting adventures.
The timeless perfection of their flight

is the time that dwarfs my alarming bondage
in the narrowed clocks that alarm

my boundaries of innocence.
Stacks of my scripts and strokes of my art

blur, and my music fades into silence
before they reach their destination
in an explosive rhythm of a heavenly ritual.

When they are back home
Their brethren do not ask

Who you are
Where you belong
Why you are here
What’s your color
Nor What’s your religion

Because their society
Nor their parents
never taught these.

2

HONOUR KILLING
in the memory of the victims communal pride

“Honour’s” daughter wedded
“dishonour’s” son,

conceived innocence and
dishonoured “honour”

who buys a crore of revenge
slits the throat of

a young dream that groans with the
premature labour pain

yielding to the primitive strength
of a prejudice’ faithful hatchet

soaked in the pool of a muted
voice on this Good Earth,

the Hindu-Christian cord of which is severed
by the scalpel of a Muslim conspiracy.

The sun sets down the grave darkness
drenched in the dirge

– ashes to ashes – of love’s bleary eye and
the honour’s trickling question’s

some questionable answers in the mutually
pricking communal kingpins

in the nation’s best television debates,
end in smoke of

the endless storm in their
emptied tea cups

that wail Love’s Labour’s Lost –
a mere silence

spilled at the rooted feet of
“the honour’s” green pride.

*

painting: Sarasij Majumder