Poetry

By

Prerna Bakshi

Some hands…

Some hands

would not be raised for prayers,

some prayers

would go unanswered,

some answers

would never be known,

some known things

would never be believed,

Some beliefs

would not be questioned,

some questions

would not be answered,

Some answers

would not be trusted,

some trust

would not be restored,

some restored houses

would never look the same,

some things would

never be the same,

some hands

would not be raised for prayers,

some hands

would just write,

some hands

would sign,

some amputated hands

would speak louder than

thousand words ever spoken and written,

some hands

would tell their stories,

some hands

just won’t surrender,

some hands

would dare to tell the truth,

some hands

would be held in solidarity,

some hands

would be raised in fists of revolt,

some hands

would just not be raised for prayers.

The fight for our rivers, mountains and forests

The rivers, the mountains, the forests

are to which we belong.

We ever belonged.

Until they came along

with high advanced machinery,

trucks laden with artillery,

state sponsored police thievery,

to lay claim

on all of this,

through breaking, distorting laws

and other tricks,

under the guise of ‘development’,

but we are irreverent,

so they say,

threatening us to go away.

No way, we say

for we simply won’t walk away.

Fight – We will

and continue to struggle.

Our resistance will go on

which they’d fail to muzzle.

–They’d fail to muzzle.

Prerna Bakshi

Prerna Bakshi is a Macao-based sociolinguist, writer and translator. Her work has previously been published in over two dozen journals and magazines, most recently in Misfit Magazine, Whirlwind magazine, Wilderness House Literary Review, Peril magazine: Asian-Australian Arts & Culture and Wordgathering: A Journal of Disability Poetry and Literature. Her full-length poetry collection, Burnt Rotis, With Love, is forthcoming from Les Éditions du Zaporogue. She tweets at @bprerna