Alchemist (in Memory of fellow-activist Smitu Kothari)

A blind turtle
– from the depths
– of the ocean floor
– finds its way
– to the surface;
– its mouth aquiver
– searching for the
– golden lasso—
– the shadow of
– the crescent moon.
– So hard, they say,
– to get human life.
– But in this
– short span,
– you diffused the
– golden lasso
– into a thousand
– iridescent beams,
– rainbow coloured prisms.
– Bridging a myriad schisms;
– alchemist of
– scholarship and activism,
– you spread the message
– of voiceless people
– across the universe;
– then you turned
– turtle, our visions,
– by leaving
– so quickly!

Fellow traveller
– to Harsud,
– the Narmada valley,
– may your voice
– never wander by hill-sides
– echoing in the wilderness,
– but flow like the
– waters of the river,
– deepening and quickening
– the current of humanity.

May you be re-born
– somewhere,
– some place,
– along the way
– of the white clouds,
– spreading the elixir
– in the air.

Sagari Chhabra