The River

The River

(c) Shubhrata Prakash

I am not a river

Bound by the corsets of muddy, sandy banks

I am not a river

Forced and confined to stay within the flanks

I am not a river

Admired in my babyhood for sprouting out of the earth’s womb

I am not a river

Fulfilling romantic fantasies when I fall in a spray like fresh blooms

I am not a river

People lusting after my youthful curves winding along valleys

I am not a river

When mature giving water, power– people their needs daily

I am not a river

When ripe just used by men for breeding

I am not a river

Trout and hilsa and rohu; and for crop feeding

I am not a river

Used and exploited; often bound and dammed

I am not a river

Often dirtied with garbage and sewage and shamed

I am not a river

Weighed down with bridges, tanks, steel; and with fear I shudder

I am not a river

My heart speared with boat oars and ruthless mechanical rudders

I am not a river

A burning place for rotting human flesh and even waste molasses

I am not a river

Where my lungs and breath are choked with consuming pyres’ ashes

I am not a river

Which is admired in youth and exploited in maturity

I am not a river

In old age distributed and thrown into the sea in obscurity

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I am not a river

I am a real woman

Yet why do I feel that

Our lives seem so common?

Everything a river faces, mostly I too face

So am I too a river, though a different race?

  

(c) Shubhrata Prakash

(From "Ink On Water".....coming soon)