Two poems by Namrata Narendra

A letter to myself

Spread even, your flesh against the gnarled roots-
push against the carmine walls that caress you;
you will learn to outgrow them.
Drape around the trunk until one can’t tell
where flesh stops and pulp begins.
Breathe in carbon, breathe out oxygen

Remind yourself that you are a symbiont;
move branches to give, but do not forget to take
support to lift yourself up to the sun
and allow the sunlight to pervade,
penetrate the earth you’re growing out of
making visible the bodies that hold and nourish you

Tame the blood coursing through your veins;
move lightly, hear the whisper of the breeze
it will rustle your foliage, find stillness in its motion.
Breathe it in, breathe it out, breathe;
and do not be afraid to ride the wind, for when you do
wilderness will grow out of the feet you left behind.

Vrishabhavati

She lays wasted between retaining walls of concrete
diverted one too many times to retain her origins,
left to dry in the interstices of collective memory
owners of which dress her daily,
one new accessory of human consumption

// crack

she who broke free from Agastya Muni’s kamandala
Kaveri is now trapped by human greed and abhyasa
how does one discard disregard,
when she can’t anymore disregard discard?
how does one curtail the currents of consumerism?

// crack

she escapes the water cured walls
with help from the clairvoyant skies
Vrishabhavati, a river no more
she’s transfigured into annals of human greed
flowing recklessly into homes that buried her

Namrata Narendra is an architect and illustrator. Her interests lie in socio-cultural interfaces of cities and communities. She captures her questions and inclinations dealing with human behavior and politics through mediums of poetry, mapping and sketches on her blog narendranamrata.wordpress.com.