The hills wake slower now,
Their outlines broken by rising roofs.
Along the Kavery’s ancient bends,
The banks grow heavier with what the river did not ask for.
The soil remembers older footsteps,
even as new shadows lengthen.
Nothing is lost-yet nothing is the same- and the land listens, and holds its breath.
A borrowed rhythm enters the air,
and yet the river moves on-holding memory without surrender.
The forest shifts its stance,
as the greedy axe moves quietly through the trees.
Fields uncertain of their future names
listen to the foreboding tune.
The old rhythms hesitate,
songs once known by the soil
return altered,
as alien drums sound louder.
And yet the river moves on-unchanged in will.
The land listens-
not in silence,
but in a slow, restless waiting.
A thin veil settles over the valley,
not darkness,
only a dulling of light.
Footsteps harden,
roots press against unfamiliar weight,
and the river carries reflections
it does not recognize.
Yet beneath this quiet burden,
something endures-
a pulse,
unwilling to be named or settled.
The embers wake within our souls,
pulled from the edge of quiet surrender,
filling us with fire to still the dirge.
We wake,
we rise,
not as shadows of what once was,
but as flame carried forward-
unspent, unbroken.
We rise together,
and we do not fade.
By
Sarojini Biddanda
