Chariots rove in the bare sky
wrecking the stars and the dingy light
Air blows like a mass of serpents
twisting and wriggling,
upturning objects on its way
wounding themselves
It rains on tin roofs as
the night unfolds riddles of summer.
Tribes and their livestock
Imagine the dark with open eyes
Their conscience fears havoc
as the night rain splatters
against their tilted hearts.
The prayers and offerings,
turn into vapor,
the skin of earth gets blisters
filled with pouts of
red velvet mites and scorpions
The silence embraces the night rain
plundering flames of the lamp;
the bloody creatures warm up to fear, trembling in breeze
The dark shaded night-rain
run down the hills,
into hamlets.
It is a show of identity.
(Ramesh Karthik Nayak (b. 1997) is a BANJARA (Nomadic aboriginal community in South Asia) writer from India.
He is one of the first writers to depict the lifestyle of the Banjara tribe in literature. His writings appeared in Exchanges: Journal of Literary Translation - University of IOWA and Poetry at Sangam.)
