POETRY: SHARAnya manivannan

RIVER*

When you leave, take with you the way light shimmered
               gold in the river,
how the weight of what you loved swirled into filigreed
                gold in the river.

That was how it felt to me, as the eventide of the 
                 annihilated dream,
when I first crossed into illumination at the 
                  threshold of the river.

There were mapmakers before me: their footfalls fade
                   tender on the earth.
Like you, they brought palms of amaryllis, asked to be
                    consoled by the river.

There's a pond in the forest whose water only ripples 
                     where you weep.
But here, all ruptures. Let your heart flood,
                      uncontrolled, into the river.

Listen: the saga unbraids. Loyalties shift, fish-dappled
                       in her surge.
You can no more submerge a story than you can
                       hold a river.

Carry all you can into the world, a tributary. But
                       pilgrim, linger a little.
Sit a while beside me. There are renderings still
                        untold in the river.

* This poem is from Sharanya Manivannan's second collection,  The Altar of the Only World (HarperCollins India, 2017).

Sharanya Manivannan is the author of five books of fiction, poetry and children's literature, including the novel The Queen of Jasmine Country, which was longlisted for the 2019 JCB Prize, longlisted for the Mathrubumi of the Year Award 2020, shortlisted for The Hindu Prize 2019,  and the short story collection The High Priestess Never Marries, which won the 2015-2016 South Asia Laadli Media and Advertising Award for Gender Sensitivity (Best Book – Fiction).