The River Remembers Her Ravines

by Babitha Marina Justin

When the waters came rolling down the hills, they scooped out the last human from the village on a rescue boat and rowed down the hill, which slid down after our flight.

We saw life boats, dinghies, fishing boats; we hoped to be saved clinging on to the last gunny-sack of dreams clamped to our chests, our lives pressed down to a few damp papers.

We plugged our ears to the news of people flowing away like catamarans with a cloud-burst or a landslide; dying prosaic like that, we held on to our lives not distinct from the unguent, unbridled cannonball mud.

We could have saved our huts, hill’s memories, our hearths; we know that the
river remembers her ravines for real long time.

We can go back to our empty hills, begin anew, write our histories on water, reclaim our lands, rake up the slush and reap in gold.

We know for real, Periyar remembers her ravines for a real long time.