Five Falls, Kuttralam
Sridala Swami
A face not so much
an image as an after-image
the dark shred where
the sun had been before
you looked away.
The centre turning
No, a long hum.
Never sure afterwards
if you stood there
if you survived
if what emerged
out of the water was spectral
or what went into it.
~~~~~
Sridala Swami’s first collection of poems, A Reluctant Survivor, was published by the Sahitya Akademi [The Indian Academy of Letters] in 2007 and short-listed for the Shakti Bhatt First Book Award in 2008. She has written three books for very young children, which were published by Pratham in 2009. Swami blogs at The Spaniard In The Works.