Monsoon Eclogue

By Srikanth Reddy Srikanth Reddy

Some years ago a procession

of men calling themselves

the sky-clad came

to this district to build

a hospital for birds that had been

damaged by the rains.

The landholders here

my grandfather among them

decided against it—

it not being our way

to intervene with monsoons

which is why to this day

the birds here grow

so damaged & wise,

or so our tutor said gravely

before stepping out into the sun-

washed coriander patch to watch

droplets work down

stems one by one, small

storms suspended, while over

the rooftiles came

breakers of mist making

our whole house to him

drift back like the high prow

of the viceroy’s steamship

he watched sail off with his youth.

Inside I still could not find

the main verb the chariot

wheel performed. I thought

it was silver. It bore

the king with 100 heads

across a battlefield red

with his wounded

up to the end of the

beginner’s workbook

then blue-skinned Rama bent his bow then his

raider’s arrow met

the axle & then

I could not stop laughing

as through the doorway my mother scolded

the aphasic houseboy

who peed into our

green watertank

(black putti, untouchable)

arcing the thin golden

stream & singing

ooo-ee ooo-ee at our ruin.

Source: Facts for Visitors (University of California Press, 2004)

Biography

Srikanth Reddy grew up in Chicago. He earned an AB from Harvard College, an MFA in creative writing from the University of Iowa, and a PhD in English literature from Harvard University. He is the author of the collection of poems Facts for Visitors (2004).

Reddy employs a variety of forms, including syllabics, terza rima, and the prose poem; his poems are collagelike in their variety and inclusiveness. Facts for Visitors was . . .

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