Nagarhole National Park, Karnataka
The earth is littered with the rainforest’s decaying longings.
All shades of brown, from acceptable to unacceptable, lying
On top of each other, shuffled for suitability of daddy long legs
And Russell’s vipers. Two hours ago, our guide had shown us
unmistakable footprints of a memory
of elephants. We’d wondered then, like we wonder now,
wet heads under this mud-brick, thatch-roof shelter engulfed by
flame-of-the-forest, rosewood, crocodile bark,
about the dead earthworm. Its udon noodle body lifeless.
All of its four pairs of hearts finally at rest, unable to love anymore
Itself and the mud. How will the ants eat it?, You’d asked the guide,
after taking several photos of the procession on your mirrorless
camera
its eye the only eye at dawn
whistling schoolboys and spotted chevrotains couldn’t avoid.
They’ll probably take it apart, skin first, organs later, he’d said.
Your claws clutched my arms tighter than the mandibles of the razor jaw ants
heaving back to their underground lair, an earthworm-shaped feast.
Even the hearts?, you’d asked, the memory of gouging chicken hearts
At the new Korean restaurant in Bangalore last month already
mulched.
Transformed into the Himalayan balsam’s seed pod
a millisecond before its explosive dispersal, he muttered
under his breath, Tell me, saar, what good are dead hearts?
We gawked at each other, then at the grumbling clouds so close
To the canopy, we could touch them, if we wanted to.
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*The landscape of this poem contains flora and fauna found within the Nagarhole National Park. Some of them endemic to the region, others endangered or invasive. Here’s a list of them in order of appearance in the poem: razor jaw ants, daddy long legs, Russell’s vipers, elephants, flame-of-the-forest, rosewood, crocodile bark tree, whistling schoolboys, spotted chevrotains, Himalayan Balsam tree.
