Legends by the Pond
We speak of history
Of kings and citizens
And the times of their lives
Great discoveries and conquests
Of battles and pathos
And on and on
Yet how little we know, or care
For the legends of the proud Bulbuls
Or the gallant epics of Starlings?
Are the stories of the solitary Barbets
Any less worthy or exalted?
Or of the steadfast Kingfishers,
Perched high, darting radiantly
Majestic living harpoons, hunting
Are their tales any less heroic, than
The legends of Man, wantonly?
Are we not just
another animal, breeding
Our tales embellishing
Our value under this dawn?
Even plants in their community
Of forests tell great tales
In concentric circles of trials
And tribulations
Growing up into grand dowagers
That witness the endless
Happenings of seasons
Mutely august, recording all
Transmitting through dendrites
Jumping the synapses of their roots
Those noble epics etched forever
in their gnarled and beautiful
memories
Bear witness perchance,
On quiet afternoons breezily
Upon the nervous ferocity
Of the squirrel clans, hoarding
In solitary packs, questing
Pomegranate fruits torn ajar
A squad of parrots, descending
Thuggish and green, with greed
Triangulating the hapless
Hero, cautiously advancing
Into a skirmish greatly, of which
No doubt,
Great ballads shall be sung
By anonymous bards, unctuously
Co-mingled with the sublimest
Arias of the Whistling Thrush
Extolling, singing endlessly
Through all the seasons
Of all Life
© Unni Nambiar (December 22nd, 2020 — January 2nd, 2021)
