(A Death Is Needed For A Renewal)
Seeing you this much mutilated
I can no more contain my sorrow-
it spreads as would a wildfire
riding a wind of its own-
the haunting voices of all
that is green, feathered, scaled
beside or within you
sing the apocalypse-
monal river,
you let your turquoise water feathers
to be ashen sewers,
though it’s a story of salty boundlessness in the end-
I am now convinced
you were always a woman
with the heart of Manikarnika,
treading the path to be a phoenix-
sumanar/lekha 
A renewal of the myth here in the waters of the Ganges — thanks for the link to Manikarnika ghat to offer a deepening of the tale of self-immolation. Fire brings renewal but it’s through cremation. Aren’t the waters of the Ganges heavily polluted from cremated bodies? Must an animal myth rise from the ashes of a human one? Again, such wonderful local color for this; I’m rooting for the pheasant and her riverine course. – Brendan
I was lucky enough (in 1998) to enter the Ganges at Mayapur, where it was relatively clean. (I still shut my eyes and mouth and held my nose as I submerged.) A magnificent river, which I could see as a Mother to her people. Sad that we human beings are such polluters!
A profound lament. Thanks for the eye opener, Sumana. 🙂
I love how you have made a tapestry here of the whole, the destroyed, the ancient and the modern, showing us that the world works in cycles, and that we have our place in it to act with virtue if we can, even at great personal cost. Thanks for teaching me about the monal and Mata Sati.
It must be a terrible sorrow to see Mother Ganga ashen, with everything feathered singing the apocalypse. (I especially loved tht line). It seems there isnt a corner of the globe we have left untouched. I trust in the Ganges though over millennia. Given a chance, she might one day recover her turquoise water feathers.
There is nothing sadder than to see how rivers are treated like sewers (and with a mighty mother like the Ganges it’s disastrous) … I have seen rivers renewing themselves after we cease to pollute them. (during my lifetime).. nature is good in renewing itself.
“[grief] spreads as would a wildfire
riding a wind of its own–”
With such impetus, who can blame, the mountains for taking the shortest path to the sea? We need hope, we would have learned resistance from the river, but now? The sea isn’t enough of a solace.