My article “Figs: Friends and Foes” is featured in Current Conservation Kids, Vol 17.
It was fascinating to encounter a cluster fig tree and many strangler fig trees around the city and learn about how ecological interactions play out in nature, from mutualism to predatory behaviors among species.
Current Conservation is a quarterly online/print magazine, making conservation science more accessible.
My piece “The Photograph” is featured in Sister Library‘s publication “Monsoon School of Writing,” a compilation of narratives by women. The cover illustration is by aqui Thami. The inspiring series of lectures were led by women at the forefront of art, design, writing, and publishing.
You dived
into the eye of a storm:
the gift
and curse of goddess.
Arrow tip
quivering as it struck
The beating
hearts of shadows
like shredded
moons making
maiden mother crone.
Now tethered
for eternity
bound to ink
and papyrus,
demons quake
and shudder
against unbending
iron shackles
churning shadows
of the living.
And you,
blazing white hot
at stake
you turned
to red cinders
a reborn mare,
tail swinging
disappearing at the turn
in the woods
where no paths follow.
Words and Image © Anuradha Prasad 2022
Photo: Deodar Forest, Himalayas, India
here where fin drags over sand
lie waking things with no names—
they shift they rest they are again
predators prey prayers
or more or possibly less
but i am gone too soon
appearing face up to the moon
so sudden a flash of emerald flame
caught between a two-blink frame—
memory is indifferent.
stars throw light ropes to my hunger—
i grasp them, swinging over and across
staggering to halt mid-air
land is dream
we are without shore
Words & Image © Anuradha Prasad 2022
I tread the edge of my ear.
The bone here is cartilage: soft bone.
The nip of your teeth still hovers.
The way is dark.
There is no memory trail.
Could it be
you never uttered it?
Tomorrow,
or another lifetime,
pull me close:
say it, say it,
Say it, so I can
retrieve it
in your absence like a love letter,
pearl in the mouth of oyster.
I will, we will, marvel:
this incandescence.
Words & Image © Anuradha Prasad 2022
eyes, sunlit gold,
looking at me
looking at you
here where
looking is loving.
Photo & Text © Anuradha Prasad 2023
Image: Spotted Owlet, Mysore Fig Tree, Lalbagh, Bangalore
Delighted to have been a part of Khôra’s curated team of writers for Issues 22–25. Grateful to editor and curator Leigh Hopkins and Corporeal Writing for this opportunity and for the insightful feedback and encouragement from Leigh and the other writers on the team that was affirming and offered me new ways to witness and shape my work. Each issue features some exciting voices and artwork.
Saraswati Blue, a lyric essay on grief in Issue 22, artwork by Jordan Tierney
Old Nights, a personal essay on sleep and night in Issue 23, artwork by Christine Shan Shan Hou
Old Nights was featured as one of the 13 best personal essays from around the web by Memoir Land’s weekly round-up!
Cairn, a short story and memorial to loss in Issue 24, artwork by Christine Shan Shan Hou
Lost Mountain, an essay on place and selfhood in Issue 25, artwork by Christine Shan Shan Hou
and you quietly fold
into the habits of being
folded and creased
yellowing at edges
angles in slumps
a razor so blunted
the slice of skin laughs
no more its lush red.
Image & Words © Anuradha Prasad 2022
While you haunt
who i was
when you once knew me,
try to fit into the shape of me
like you would into discarded clothes
made for another body,
covet and drape
my shed, dead skin
like stole,
naked i flew
and free.
If you must know,
I’ve risen
afar again,
living the fate
of a star.
There
you will not find
me.
There’s no map
to here.
I leave
no dust trail.
The aerial
never do.
Where I am
there is
sun flower,
sun beam,
wooden cross.
Image and Text © Anuradha Prasad 2022
Burrowing into yourself, bumping into bones, squeezing past flesh, tiptoeing over
blood, sidestepping spongy organs, you become more than skin and nose and
hair and hips even as your hands, fingertips shiver over clavicles, pubic bone, a
world map slapped against thigh till you are water and breath and whole.
…
Read my poem “Solus” in nether Quarterly’s Issue 6.
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