Watch by Archana Verma Translated from Hindi by Aruna Sitesh and Arlene Zide
Where today there is ice
long ago
there was a river.
There is a blank face
A frozen river.
An eye: a hole in the ice.
Just inside the opening
exists a world
imprisoned.
Utter darkness —
hard, terrifying, dense
keeps watch
on what goes on there.
A watch
on what once flowed in the veins of ice
The river
got through it all
by freezing.
Poetry
© 2005-2008 Per Contra: The International Journal of the Arts, Literature and Ideas