TRIVARNA HARIHARAN

Climbing

Growing up, I always 
longed to live like green peas. 
Round as the crystal ball in 
which my future was once told. 
Verdant dervishes! 
Hermits under a Banyan tree. 

My neighbour is shelling 
them in his kitchen. Popping 
them from a green caterpillar 
case. With what grace are they 
wombed into this world! 
First the chuckling bald head, 
then the green-tailed belly. 
 
Jostling for space, 
they squiggle like children 
in a park. Like people off 
a bullet train: they see-saw 
under the weight of their 
suitcases. 

What else are they like—
a baby's first teeth? 
a priest's prayer beads?
 
My daughter’s palm 
always trying to reach for 
what is higher than her.

To See Myself in Another’s Light

Frogs sprawl like starfish in a lake. 
          Bending their knees, they dive 
into the water—praying 
       perhaps to its moss-kissed rocks. 

With every croak, 
       the fireflies in their throats flame alive. 
A golden light sweeps
        through the lake’s green reels. 

To them, praying is 
       not an act of rising 
but falling deeper—
    
—how clocks slither to a halt 
in the sink—heaving 
        every moment to this moment­,
like a palm out-stretched 
           for sunlight—

From these frogs,
       I learn that faith does not 
require breaking out of 
         the body, but being en-wombed 
in what you pray for. 
 
So let me be, I pray: 
        imagining my body in calf-white waters, 
in the purple bowl of dusk, 
        fireflies in a frog’s throat.
How soothing it is to know
           that everything we eat may
turn into light––
          even the grief, the deep
blue grief.
 
As I darken my room to sleep at night, 
             I glimpse a sparrow-wing of flight, 
a small matchstick of flame. 
             In its lantern I see my orange face
down to its blackest mole.
           Through the window––it splinters 
my face into the roads, 
           the wind, the wind.
 
Coming closer, 
          I wave my finger in the same place 
as this light— which is 
         a firefly’s leg dangling in sleep.

Trivarna Hariharan is a writer and pianist based in India. She has studied English Literature at Delhi University, and the University of Cambridge. Her poetry collection, There Was Once A River Here was published by Les Editions du Zaporogue. A Pushcart-prize nominee, her poems have been published in Entropy, Front Porch, Noble/Gas Quarterly, Right Hand Pointing, and others.  You can read more of her work at trivarnahariharan.com