Shalini Pattabiraman
Turbulence
Heat rises. Wave after wave, heaviness lifts among the wings, circles the air, reaches the birds. Birds fall from the sky, their fine bones shattering upon contact with the earth.
stitching seasons
Blue slips from view and in front of me, ice calves, caving into the warm linearity of sea.
out of sequence
Warm replaces the cool in the swirling school of fish. After a frenzied movement, the fish stop fanning their fins.
All agitation stills.
Fish fins ripple on the water’s surface, their slippery skin glistening in the sweltering heat, blurring the words, making ugly what one thinks beautiful at first.
cataract eyes
On the other side of the world, across a dry riverbed, silver beams. Like strands of fine hair, the moon lights up the sand-stream until it begins to shimmer and the floor begins to flow like a full river.
hollowed reed
People follow the exodus of animals and birds. The past becomes the present, the present becomes the future.
a song-echo thrums
Primitive wheels make movement possible. Any movement, however fragile.
endlessly
The eye of the storm sits amidst us.
About the Author
Shalini Pattabiraman shies away from the mantle of a single identity; a restless traveler, she is learning to read the world through symbols.