Part 51

Posted on by Rajani Radhakrishnan

At Nanyuki, they say, the equator runs under asphalt
and bush. I imagine it like the seam of a cricket ball,
six rows of coarse stitches, acacia trees and thorny

scrub sewing the path. Two unequal halves held
together. Somehow. The me walking on water
and the me wrecked at the bottom of the sea.

The me going through the rituals of being and
the me talking in binaries with the moon. The me
lost in diagonal abstractions and the me found

in circles leading into the dark. The seam in the
middle, red and oozing, the uncaring hand of an
imposter hemming by candlelight. In the savannah,

yellow eyes no longer follow the green safari
jeeps. The animals have made allowances for the
displacement. The rear tyre sinks into loose Mara

mud. Two people need to step out of the vehicle.
Two adolescent lions that just let a wildebeest
escape, watch from the side. Cheated. Angry.

Twilight is one violet blink away. A fish eagle
screeches overhead, heading home. Everything
is silhouetted against burning indigo. Today they

will be kind. Today they will stay hungry. Today is
not the end. Somehow. A lesson in two parts.
A life in two halves. The me that isn’t me without

the home that wasn’t a home and the me that is
broken in two, each morning, in the mirror. Stitched
back together with an imaginary line. Somehow.

(Nanyuki/ Masai Mara, Kenya)

36 thoughts on “Part 51”

  2. I can see conflicting emotions here tearing the soul apart. There are many times when you have to stitch yourself together to survive. I do that everyday. With you.

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  3. “I imagine it like the seam of a cricket ball . . . . Two unequal halves held
    together.” You use the dualism brilliantly, and setting it up with the seams of a cricket ball hints at colonialism. How I am learning to suspect the vision of polarities, though! What of the space between the two dramatic extremes? That is what is crazy making, our vision being clearest at those two points. That’s why this is my favorite, as I can feel them coming on before I am all in: The me / lost in diagonal abstractions and the me found // in circles leading into the dark.” And I love the choice of the two adolescent lions to wait out the hunger, to forgive today, is a startling idea. “A lesson in two parts.” In the wild! More than ever we should reclaim more of our wild.

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    1. Thanks so much… this was a nerve-wracking experience in the bush just hoping the animals wouldn’t move a muscle. The colonialism reference is right.. the equator pretty much dividing the global north and south.. or barely holding them together.

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  4. This has led me into a deep contemplation of what it means to be a white Australian – the colonial past and the strange ambiguous present of being here connecting to this ancient land. I guess that’s nothing to do with your poem but somehow those two lions watching from the sidelines, the screeching eagle and the being stitched together with an imaginary line led me to such thoughts.

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    1. Our introspection into how we fit into the past and present may not always provide the answers we want, but I do think it is both valuable and necessary. In writing this series, I feel I understand myself a wee bit better, as an individual but also as part of the interconnected whole.

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  7. The cheated and angry lions gave a shiver … I know of a tourist killed by a lion on holiday when opening a car window to take its picture. The word lion now inevitably brings that poor girl to mind.

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  9. This would make another great contribution to Paul’s Wrestling Angels challenge at Desperate Poets this past week. The one you did link did locally or you achieve globally here. The equatorial seam “red and oozing” bearing fraught halves. That is a wholeness wrestling with a dark angel. And you blend that difficulty seamlessly with the work within, where halves contend too – “The me walking on water / and the me wrecked at the bottom of the sea.” (Wow, great lines.) The stitching raw, of unequal parts, held in the angelic hand of one poem sung in many. I think it responds to the question you asked in the linked poem: “What do pretty words / matter when everything is crumbling?” A lot, almost enough. Fine, fine work, my friend.

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    1. Thanks so much, Brendan. That was very kind. I think we try hard to hold our halves together and just make it through the hour, day… lifetime. Perhaps as Rilke said, we are defeated in that process, but that realization is its own victory.

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  10. A wonderful poem, amazing photos, and an adventure lived through and recalled. Those lions, so close! Wild and beautiful.

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  12. Pingback: Poetry Blog Digest 2023, Week 24 – Via Negativa

  14. Such profound thoughts …. the me that isn’t me…. I really admire the way you articulate your subtle feelings along with the panicky situation you were in….As always beautiful write.

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  15. I can imagine this poem being read in front of the mirrors, serious eyes looking into serious eyes, remembering what was, wondering about what could’ve been. Life is a many-forked path. And there are so many we don’t take…

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  18. Beautiful and evocative writing – as ever – and I love the photos to accompany the words. I love the mathematical slant throughout the poem, the language of symmetry you often use, as if there is the desire to somehow measure the moments to hold them or make sense of them, or so it seems to me. I always enjoy reading you!

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