Our lives are but a flicker...
Mother Earth turns, time decays, circles of life and death, the garbage accumulated by endless generations composting, and that which does not compost seeping into the ground poisoning the future. Our lives are but a flicker compared to the long life of the earth, and the eternal nature of the soul animating all things.
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Mother Earth turns, time decays, circles of life and death, the garbage accumulated by endless generations composting, and that which does not compost seeping into the ground poisoning the future. Our lives are but a flicker compared to the long life of the earth, and the eternal nature of the soul animating all things.
by Janavi Held
Only
the blue
of the sky
is left
to mourn
and remember
departed days
of earth
and salty things.
Her memory
is like volcanic weeping,
idols of milk,
and frost,
and stone
sunken now
in exhausted shadows,
and the menacing metal
of steel
like ice,
like accidental death,
or an absent mother
with cloudy memories.
The shadow
of seasons
caress the solitary shore
as the rise
and fall
of people sink
like a forgotten army
even when the twilight air
is laden with hope,
like the heavy scent
of jasmine flowers,
time
will have her victory.
Even the aviators of night
cannot chain their
machines
to immortality
the mortal coil
consumes nails
that bind flesh
to spirit
and according to atoms
they are ploughed under
fertilizing the next
generation
of hands and eyes,
and no one remembers.
(Click play to listen to the author recite her poem and interpret it with her own photography)
Janavi Held is the author of Letters to my Oldest Friend: A Book of Poetry and Photography. She has also contributed poems to two poetry anthologies, Bhakti Blossoms: A Collection of Contemporary Vaishnavi Poetry and GODDESS: When She Rules: Expressions by Contemporary Women. Two of her poems were shortlisted for the prestigious Hamilton House International Poetry Prize awarded by the University Centre Grimsby, and published in their anthology "Eternal". Janavi started writing poetry and wandering around with her father’s camera as a child. At the age of nineteen, she began practicing Bhakti yoga. She held a bachelor’s degree from Goddard College where she studied poetry, photography, and media studies. She passed away peacefully in December of 2018 after having battled a brutal illness. You may read more of her poems and view her artwork on her website here and Facebook page here.
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