Three Poems By Jahnavi Gogoi

A snake can detect an earthquake seventy-five miles away

and five days before it happens. Found in a random forward

by a person I am not friends with. I did not question

the veracity of this information. Having no desire really

to get to know them. In my language the word ‘Xaap’

is not spoken aloud at night. Fear and reverence

contained in one expelled breath. Yet, a girl I know

told me how she is hypnotized by their sinuous grace.

Not me! On Thursday, I shut a heavy encyclopedia

shattering the peace of a library. Boom! Like a bomb

exploding on my street back home. I gathered my wits

like limbs and coughed into my sleeve. Life with me

being sound and fury. The wind itself changing

its direction as I walk through it. I know they sense me

from afar, I let them.

The bamboo grove in our backyard has grown ten feet tall.

I use a Da to make my way, ferociously hacking at the

overhanging branches of a Nahar. The stiff leaves rustle

impatiently on the lissome stems in disagreement.

The Moringa bristles with pain relished by hairy caterpillars.

The Colocasia is giant, splendid, the red earth steams. The moon

is up in the middle of the day. Defiant, it says “I am always here”.

Somehow I am twelve again, a child in plaits, curious, unafraid,

armed with a weapon. A Koel has cried herself hoarse as usual.

Father hums to himself. Or is it that transistor he carries around?

A small fire burns while I mutter, “The Latin word for leaf is Folium”.

But today it is burnt feathers not foliage. The afternoon embraces

my transfixed self as I watch the dead. “You are back, Deuta”, I gasp.

It is a hushed prayer of elation. He does not look up as he prepares fowl,

skin singed, fingers dexterous. My stomach rumbles. In every dream,

we feast.

 Like the moon, he is always there.

Often a moth will follow me, up and down it moves its

gossamer wings. Powered by darkness, fluttering against

the patio door. Like a ghost it peeks inside.

Becoming a stick, a fallen leaf from a maple, dead grass,

the sleeve of my camel-coloured coat, clinging to the underside

of a branch, it quietly plots an apocalypse.

Kissing the crook of my elbow like a dissembling lover,

somedays it’s death, somedays it’s hope. But most days I

chide myself “It’s just a moth”.