#144: A Litany for Survival

Apr 26, 2021

Dear reader,

I hope you’re doing okay. These are not good times and I just hope you’re all staying indoors and safe and have coping mechanisms to deal with it all. Please avoid doom scrolling. Be mindful of your emotional and mental health, not just physical. Take steam and vitamins regularly. And be kind to those who are less fortunate than you.

Most importantly, be responsible and find your strength and let your survival instincts take over.

Today, I’m sharing a few powerful poems about survival, including one of my own.

1. A Litany for Survival by Audre Lorde

For those of us who live at the shoreline
standing upon the constant edges of decision
crucial and alone
for those of us who cannot indulge
the passing dreams of choice
who love in doorways coming and going
in the hours between dawns
looking inward and outward
at once before and after
seeking a now that can breed
futures
like bread in our children’s mouths
so their dreams will not reflect
the death of ours;

For those of us
who were imprinted with fear
like a faint line in the center of our foreheads
learning to be afraid with our mother’s milk
for by this weapon
this illusion of some safety to be found
the heavy-footed hoped to silence us
For all of us
this instant and this triumph
We were never meant to survive.

And when the sun rises we are afraid
it might not remain
when the sun sets we are afraid
it might not rise in the morning
when our stomachs are full we are afraid
of indigestion
when our stomachs are empty we are afraid
we may never eat again
when we are loved we are afraid
love will vanish
when we are alone we are afraid
love will never return
and when we speak we are afraid
our words will not be heard
nor welcomed
but when we are silent
we are still afraid

So it is better to speak
remembering
we were never meant to survive.

2. Handle with care by Rohini Kejriwal

This poem is broken
just like the systems of
oppression
differentiation
fascism
within which
we exist, barely.

Do not try to fix the poem
or feed it
with false hope
with delusions
of repair
of wholeness.
No amount of
stitching,
kintsugi,
carpentry,
glue,
scotch tape,
praying
can put the pieces
back together.

This poem does not need
a consolation prize
for being broken.

It will learn to cope
like all broken things do.
It will survive
because it must.

3. Survivor by Vijay Seshadri

We hold it against you that you survived.
People better than you are dead,
but you still punch the clock.
Your body has wizened but has not bled

its substance out on the killing floor
or flatlined in intensive care
or vanished after school
or stepped off the ledge in despair.

Of all those you started with,
only you are still around;
only you have not been listed with
the defeated and the drowned.

So how could you ever win our respect?–
you, who had the sense to duck,
you, with your strength almost intact
and all your good luck.

4. The Storyteller by Claire-Louise Grace Watson

When grandpa settles in his favourite chair
I know that a swashbuckling story is near:
how he crammed his pockets with souvenirs
and boldly escaped a smuggler’s lair,
sliced through oceans in a submarine,
survived a grenade, or harpooned a whale.
Dad rolls his eyes when he starts a tale,
and even I doubt he dined with the Queen.
Now I recount the stories to his vacant face,
for perhaps he still hears or understands
though he wears disease as his new disguise.
For a moment we soar to another place;
when I turn to leave he grips my hand,
and signals approval with glimmering eyes.

5. Elegy by Aracelis Girmay

What to do with this knowledge
that our living is not guaranteed?

Perhaps one day you touch the young branch
of something beautiful. & it grows & grows
despite your birthdays & the death certificate,
& it one day shades the heads of something beautiful
or makes itself useful to the nest. Walk out
of your house, then, believing in this.
Nothing else matters.

All above us is the touching
of strangers & parrots,
some of them human,
some of them not human.

Listen to me. I am telling you
a true thing. This is the only kingdom.
The kingdom of touching;
the touches of the disappearing, things.

Recommended Listening:

-You Ain't Alone - Alabama Shakes

-SelfHealers SoundBoard hosted by Dr. Nicole LePera (This helps)

-Mercy - Max Richter

-Hania Rani – Live from Studio S2

-Blue Mountains - Peter Doran feat. Haley Heynderickx

Links of the Week:

1. Hope in the Streets of NYC by Loe Lee (I love doodling over photographs, and felt inspired and joyful seeing this series!)

2. David Hockney shows his sketchbook

3. Interviews with survivors of the Titanic Disaster

4. A free font that illustrates the climate crisis

5. Download: The IKEA ScrapsBook - a cookbook dedicated to cooking with the little things we usually throw away

6. Interview | The Monsoon Mail - on books, poetry, cities, clouds, and more

7. The power of introverts

8. Spring: Nikita Biswal x Preksha Sipani

9. Movie of the Night, a movie/series recommendation engine

10. A life-altering decision to enter therapy

Application Alert: India Fellow

India Fellow is an18-month journey for young Indians who aspire to understand social issues by working on ground and become the change agents of tomorrow. It is an experiential social leadership program that includes working full time with a host organization on a social issue together with training, peer learning and mentoring. This experience will empower India Fellows to find their own leadership potential, shape their futures and make a difference.

Applications are open until 20th May, 2021
Apply now at www.indiafellow.org/apply-now

This is my newsletter: Meghna Prakash

"Poetry has always twisted the knots in my heart to access memories I’d closed myself off to permanently in real time. It has also given me hope in desolate times such as this.

My poems (which I started first dabbling in between the ages of 4-6 years) were songs of sadness. And till today, the best poems I write haven't strayed too much of this. It’s still how I navigate the world, just as an adult this time. I go to music when I'm happy, but poetry finds me when I am on the edge of the cliff.

So today's newsletter is to celebrate sadness, authenticity and surviving this world of pain with poems and art."
-Meghna Prakash

Read the poignant poems Meghna has picked for the readers - from Kamala Das and A.K. Ramanujan to Tomas Tranströmer and Mahmoud Darwish here + Subscribe here for a surprise newsletter by a new guest every Sunday.

New Poems in the Journal:

-Why I can’t write anymore by Subhalakshmi Roy (I wonder if I can mail Raisina Hill / Saying you messed my mental health, here is the bill.)

-Earth Day: Open Your Eyes: An Anthology on Climate Change (For World Earth Day, I picked some favorites from the brilliant collection of poetry and prose on oil spills, deforestation, loss of biodiversity, tsunamis, pandemics the politics of climate change)

-The Language that Escapes Me by Spatika Jayaram (I left a language unknown to a land of words and tongue / speaking old, and young, with oh, so many spices mixed)

There’s not much that can be said to offer solace in these difficult times. So I'll just share this reminder I found on Dense Discovery recently:

"Find the things you love, and the people you love, and make time for both. Sometimes, life doesn’t have to be much more complicated than that."
-Dan Oshinsky

Sending a sprinkle of hope and strength via this email.

Stay home and stay safe!
Rohini