The Striders

Author(s): A. K. RAMANUJAN
Source: Mahfil, Vol. 1, No. 3 (1964), p. 34
Published by: Asian Studies Center, Michigan State University
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/43644745
Accessed: 09-03-2023 04:41 UTC

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MAHFIL, vol. I, no. 3. &
to seed October heat with a rattle
of mustard specks,
each a black and simple
son of that deep-dyed garishness.
In an inch of drybone saťtd, these
ugly firstlings gather their ancestral
fantasy flesh and burst their bellies
in scorpion travail
precisely timed
to throw a rash of caterpillar cacti
upon the sun. Tropic and striped,
they grope, and claw
the naked heat of a Southern sky.
Agitating for the skinny dugs of June, they rant
like a mob of tigermoth cubs, limed
to treacherous earth's ironic lav/
that holds by the root a plant.

The Striders

Put away, put away this dream.

And search
for certain thin-
stemmed, bubble-eyed v/ater bugs.
See them perch
on dry capillary legs
weightless
on the ripple skin
of a stream.

No, not only prophets

walk on water. This bug sits
on a landslide of lights
and drowns eye-
deep
into its tiny strip
of sky.

I Listened

I listened
till I almost heard
in the bone
of the winter v/orld

the hatch, the crackle,

of a spring-
bud pattern,
uncurling

in the branch
behind the word.

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