An intense and powerful poem about an ailing forest, by Nosano, exclusively for Different Truths.

I heard heart murmurs ECGs could not detect
Urging me
To paint their pain in poetry,
To enlarge my musing-radar
And listen long –
Long enough to dismiss shadow lines between
Now and then, human and flora.
 
Faithful moon has witnessed all the motions
transpire between Creator and primeval forest,
Now recorded in volumes of leaves and streams,
grass-blades and oaks,
dandelions floating and seeking a base
to convince a reluctant poet lost for words.
 
Once, bombs and commerce killed our trees and hills
Now, its developmental-detonators
Every monsoon, muddy tears of landslides run down mountain cheeks
as riparian riches are swept off to enemy wasteland.
 
If butterfly-flaps can change the cosmic pattern
of skies and elements,
Would not a primal syllable of un-voiced cries
Carve a ripple
like annual rings of a freshly murdered tree
that silently hold a library of universal memories?
 
If my lines run incoherent and helpless,
So are the seasons with which I paint this primal syllable-song
which fail to do justice to
a falling felled forest
Please let the next poet tell them I tried,
Should acorns arise! 

*lied: A term in the German vernacular to describe setting poetry to classical music to create a piece of polyphonic music. 

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Nosano Kikhi

Nosano Kikhi makes her home in Kohima, capital of Nagaland. Her poems have been published in various anthologies of poetry, namely – Poetry From Nagaland, In All The Spaces : Diverse Voices in Global Women’s Poetry, Earth Fire Water Wind and Millennial Poesy. Currently working in MGNREGA under the Ministry of Rural Development, she is also a member of the Nagaland EarthCare Foundation where she promotes rooftop gardening and organic composting.