Of Revolutions

Posting a thrice-published poem here today. i wrote this in my last year of school, and it was first published in a supplement of the Times of India, followed by a leftist newsletter, and then in The Stephanian in my first year of college. It begins with a reference to the colour lilac...if you scroll down to the poem that i've posted just before this one (called Exotic Transition and written in 1990), there is a nice continuity.

Of Revolutions (written on 18th April, 1989).

The lilac mist evaporates

to let the blazing mixture

of the heavens

reign supreme.

And the earth bows down

and is content,

For it approves

of this consistency of events

as they repeat themselves

in systematic succession

with an air

of time-tested perfection.

Then, a strange day arrives

with a different strain

and stranger hues

and shatters all

that once held sway.

The alien storm

uproots the old

and that past perfection

is made to appear

incomplete and erroneous

and is made to fade away

into obsolescence.

And Mankind finds

that the world must change

and that it holds no place

for those who cling on.

And the loss is great.

but what is gained

is greater still.

                                 By V. Shruti Devi (quill-o-the-wisp)

                             

Exotic Transition

By V. Shruti Devi (quill-o-the-wisp)

Here's a poem from my collection of writings in the 1980s and '90s. This one's called Exotic Transition, and i was reminded of it because it's about the colour purple, one that suddenly seems to be in vogue now. This was written on the 4th of January, 1990.

Exotic Transition

Mauve mellow breezes

drifted into time

And cast a net of purple shades

From earth's deepest purple caves

to the ultra-violet skyline.

Lavender-perfumed moonlight

caught the amethyst eyes of a swan

as it moved on

in the river of wine.

It was the reign

of the colour divine.

It could kill and it could thrill

the heart and soul of man.

And so it came,

the purple time.

And man wondered

whether it was dawn or dusk.

It was dusk.

It was dawn.

The new would come

The old would be gone

---

                                                                  - V. Shruti Devi