Surging forth from his marble slumber, Michelangiolo’s David became a glorious symbol of Renaissance Firenze’s (Florence’s) love of art, its people’s strong sense of independence and political awareness. It also stays true to the anatomical brilliance that was mastered by Greek sculptors! The internet is awash with fascinating factual details and stories about this eternal piece of sculpture, but here’s a letter by an Indian girl who is in awe of an Italian master’s art:
A letter to Michelangelo’s David
Tomorrow on my YouTube. It’s just simply true: no matter how many hundred videos you watch, how many hundred articles you read and how many thousand photographs you see, beholding a piece of art whose beauty and meaning have endured for centuries, in person, is an ineffable joy. Or another new exquisite pain in your arse if you adore an artist’s work with that gut-wrenching, sanity-testing love. That’s what it was like to see David. And the other unfinished Michelangiolo statues in the hallway of Uffizi (What’s a ‘finished’ piece of art anyway?) Anyway, the letter is to the David of that moment that our darling marble-man chose to suspend in time. One who has stood in Firenze for centuries. May he long continue to inspire not just the Florentines as he was intended to, but all of us everywhere.
Himalayan Aves #72: Golden bush-robin
a sudden, simple thought
when I go
there is one less human heart
to moon over the moon, the earth
and you, robin
bogged down by quests
for purpose, happiness, meaning
a condition never conducive to growing wings
is this why we cannot fly
we wander in the abstract
even with our bellies full
your hungers are satiable, robin
your tiny wings, unafraid of all that sky
first rain of the season
stirring the soil of my hometown
into fragrant unrest
my beloved in a faraway town
thunder splits my heart asunder
pity heartbreaks are never heard
India and Italia
Just realised that my latest obsessions – Michelangiolo and Andrea Bocelli – are both Italian. As if I’m not already achingly in love with Italia and those who have made it great! Looks like I might have been an Italian in a past life or might be one in the next. Well, screw the idea of salvation; give me more lifetimes! Until I can muster the courage to say I have explored India and Italia well. This longing should bring my soul back to Earth all right, if that concept were indeed true. The idea of it excites me just for this reason.
World Theatre Day
Picking up on something Viola Davis had once said to Meryl Streep, here are a few thoughts on why theatre fascinates us.
Himalayan Aves #71: Speckled piculet
wind gasps
when you slice through it
anatomically so small
but a strength of quiet authenticity a firm integrity
permit me to envy you, piculet
in your sudden, unexpected presence
you irradiate a strength so monumental
the Himalayan mountains become only a backdrop
our adoration for you articulates itself
with a frenzied force
a poem pushed out of an imaginative womb
Himalayan Aves #70: Chestnut-crowned laughingthrush
in these mountains and valleys where eons have melted
days seem infinitesimal
time meddles
a chestnut-crowned laughingthrush
there’s another and another
flying from one tangle to another
a bold one chooses an open perch
a berry in its beak
when time meddles with us
birds bring us comfort
sweet, sweet distractions
raising wonder
briefly contained in a Himalayan valley
it’s all right that it does not matter
that we do not matter
in the cosmic scale of things
for there is a here, there is a now, and there is a bird
For Indian and African elephants
Letters to elephants, inspired by moments captured by Santosh Saligram across India and Africa.
May they long roam the wildernesses across the world.
101 Poems on Himalayan birds now in video format, too!
166th Kannada poem filmed at Altare della Patria (Vittoriano) in Roma, Italia
Always fun to take Kannada poetry beyond the borders of Karnataka!
This poem is about a horse, by S. Manjunath, a man who died young, a man through whom a lot more poetry would have happened to us were he alive for a few more years. His free verse is so magnificent that in its depth and wonder it can move purists who rant about strict metres, to silence. Our small tribute to a beloved poet!
Silkworm Slumbers 