The Silt That Remembers: Verses on the Swollen Mandakini

The water does not come down the gorge as rain;
It comes down as red clay and broken slate,
Thick as unground paste,
Carrying the roots of pine trees that stood for eighty winters.

Below the suspension bridge,
The temple steps disappear one by one—
First the bronze tortoise,
Then the oil lamp niche,
Then the flagstone where the sadhu sat at sunrise.

I. The Gauge Mark

The flood mark on the boulder is forty years old,
A faint white line of lime where the river reached in 1986.

Tonight the water touches it again.
Not with anger,
Not with fury,
But with the slow, unquestionable geometry of water returning to its own house.

The river does not know the town has built concrete guest houses on the bend;
It only knows the width of its original bed.

II. The Lantern by the Parapet

The tea vendor ties his wooden bench to an iron ring in the cliff face.
He has seen seven monsoons take seven bridges.

He lights a kerosene lantern and sets it on the slate ledge.
In the amber glow,
The foam rushes past like white wolves in the dark.

He sits on his haunches, smoking a beedi,
Listening to the mountain grind its teeth below the surface.
You do not fight a river in August;
You only pull your knees closer to your chest and wait for morning.