K K Mathew(Three Poems)

 

 

Easter Lilies

 

The Easter lilies, their buds closed tight

Beneath the still unbreathing soil.

You can't rouse them, to bring back

That easter garden of violet deaths

And golden resurrection slipped

From our childhood days with ease.

Even the faded heat sinking down

Through the earth cannot wake up

The lilies and raise them back to life.

But tuned to the reappearing sun,

Patient for some promised resurrection,

Each year, they are the first to rise.

 

 

 

 

 

Encounter With A Snake

 

Resting on a rock, he was asleep,

Or numb with wind, or dead.

His loops angular; circles sinking in,

On themselves, until he seemed a rock.

Merely dreaming  or resting conveniently.

Now,  the head raised, but no strike,

No evasive maneuver; seemed polite.

He was pale, also skeletal and

The thin horror anemic with winds,

Or sleep. In a few seconds, he was

Full stretched; barely a yard, a baby.

I was grateful to him for his minisize,

And for his venom. His head

Small will grow  to a colourful ' V' on it.

Now, I can walk unwary smiling,

Until he begins to grow fast

And the wind will then pick up

His noisy, dry music from the valley.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Spider Gods

 

Passages extend to the mouth of the echo;

Spiders are poised overhead, in the shadows.

They are spinning and spinning always

They are sacred to us, they create the universe.

When times are bad with little flesh to eat,

We hold the skulls and dance with drumbeats

It's our way of praying to the spider gods.

The spiders are the spirits. The dead.

They spin the sun, they spin the sky,

They spin the moon, they spin the earth.

We are beasts dancing, and dreaming,

Trying to love, trying to make

Our homes in this little world.