In Memoriam — Keki Daruwalla: A Tribute, by Menka Shivdasani
There must be fire in the language and music in the words."…
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From ULR
Issue 1 – The Beginning
Kites
Flimsy kites hide sharp glass, soaring fiercely, breaking free, leaving hands empty and skies bare.
July 15, 2018
Kites are flimsy, fragile,
decorative, paper-thin,
bearing their wooden cross,
biding their time in airless drawers,
hidden away from the sky.
Kites are nasty, like women.
sharp-edged, they fly
against the clouds,
bite into your hand.
The threads they bear
have hidden shards of glass,
unfurling as they gauge the weft of wind.
You who stand on the parapet edge,
believing you hold the strings,
look up where it hovers and rustles.
Kites are nasty, they soar,
they tug against the reins,
catch the nearest squall
and disappear.
You will only be left
with a stinging hand
and an empty space above.
📖
PART OF A COLLECTIONThe Whole Deal and 2 other poems
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Menka Shivdasani
Menka Shivdasani is the author of four collections of poetry, with her most recent being Frazil (1980 – 2017). She has edited two anthologies of contemporary Indian poetry for the American e-zine www.bigbridge.org, and an anthology of women’s writing, If the Roof Leaks, Let it Leak (SPARROW). She is co-translator of Freedom and Fissures, an anthology of Sindhi Partition poetry (Sahitya Akademi). She has been conducting a four-day poetry festival in Mumbai for the global movement 100 Thousand Poets for Change since 2012, and in 1986, she had played a key role in founding the Poetry Circle in Mumbai. Her work as a journalist includes 14 books as co-author/ editor.