POETRY FOCUS: POEM BY PRIYA SARUKKAI CHABRIA

Eyewear is very pleased to feature a poem by the Indian poet Priya Sarukkai Chabria today.

At The Great Wall*

Beneath a wind-blown sky

white spring flowers flutter

like prayer flags against the stone

wall which serpentines up and down

the hills, its dark density

serrations thrusting from the dragon’s

spine --which sleeps beneath the earth

wallowing in its waste: molten

lament and power. It sighs

as late light’s honey licks

the wall’s charcoal pores and sucks

darkness up its throat.

*From the sequence of poems titled China Suite

Priya Sarukkai Chabria is a poet, novelist, essayist and translator with five published books. Awarded by the Indian Government for her Outstanding Contribution to Literature her works’ translated into six languages & is published or forthcoming in Adelphiana, Soundings , South Asian Review, Caravan ,Post Road, The British Journal of Literary Translation , Drunken Boat, Pratilipi, Language for a New Century, The Literary Review, IQ, Another English: Anglophone Poems from Around the World among others. Forthcoming in 2015 are translations of Tamil mystic poet Aandaal (Zubaan) with poet Ravi Shankar, and a short story collection(Niyogi Book). She edits Poetry at Sangam.

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