Poetry

By

Sunil Sharma

The White Mountain: A chant

Hear! The mountain awakes, angry, disturbed by the machines, the bulldozers and the planes; it feels violated; an alien presence.

The majestic mountain looks barren and empty in the eyes

of the marauders in suits with clipped tones and plastic smiles

an ideal place to be annexed for the military exercises and maneuvers

not for conservation of the fragile ecosystem there. For them, it is a thing for conquest in the name of science, knowledge, advancement!

We will not allow that to pass. Beware! The spirits are awake. Hear the hissing sound!

It is not a mere mountain, some icy expanse—lifeless, static, to be used cynically.

Hark! It is more than that. A gateway to higher realities and spiritual truths

recorded by the ancients, carried forward orally and other means, the holy narratives now lost, in the global markets.

Home to rare native species that cannot speak against the desecration of the alpine habitat and a lifestyle under threat by the industrial-military complex.

In the name of technology and progress, you do this all!

No longer acceptable, this flawed logic for us, the offspring nurtured on the lap, breathing the pure air and nourished on the waters of the tallest mountain, the primeval source of our culture.

The Mauna Kea is not frigid but alive; a holy presence! Not some mute geography, up for sale!

This is no ordinary peak but the eternal home of Wao Akua-the Creator, overseeing the island; a divine space where the sky father meets the earth mother, where heaven gets revealed.

It houses the collective songs, stories, epics; here are buried the ancestors; their spirits guard the island, the sea, the sky; the White Mountain is the meaning, the context that makes the Hawaiian experience enriching and relevant!

Sunil Sharma

Mumbai-based, Sunil Sharma writes prose and poetry, apart from doing literary journalism and freelancing. A senior academic, he has been published in some of the leading international journals and anthologies. Sunil has got three collections of poetry, one collection of short fiction, one novel and co-edited five books of poetry, short fiction and literary criticism.  Recipient of the UK-based Destiny Poets’ inaugural Poet of the Year award—2012.  Another notable achievement is his select poems were published in the prestigious UN project: Happiness: The Delight-Tree-2015. He edits the  English section of the monthly Setu, a bilingual journal from Pittsburgh, USA.