Skip to main content

Eagle


An eagle I saw in Orcha a few months back

I fly, I fly high, I fly very high,
Heights are in my genes,
My eyrie is on the cliff
With no egg waiting to hatch.

Eagle’s eggs are eaten by scavenging crows.

They descend, the crows descend,
And feed on the maggots that breed on the garbage
Thrown by you people all over what you call civilisation –
In the backyard of the plaza or the foreground of Gaza.

The carrion of your civilisation nauseates me.                    
I cannot lay eggs anymore.
My bones shrink at the sight of your city.
I’ll be the missing link between man and humanity.

I’ll die in my eyrie one day
Without any egg to hatch,
Without offspring,
Without grief.

My unlaid egg is waiting for the Darwinian mutation
in my eyrie

where scavenging crows strive to ascend.

Comments

  1. This is really a good poem. Enjoyed it.

    ReplyDelete
  2. It talks about a lot of things. I am very least aware of this but after reading this I feel that eagle's population is at risk. Also your poem questions the human civilization. Oh yes... We have made living unfit for every other being. And this time it's rhyming... :) :D

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. A lot of things, yes, Namrata. That seems to be my nemesis. I cannot focus on one thing. I guess we cannot simplify anything by reducing the complexity ...

      Rhyming? I wasn't aware of it. Thanks for pointing out.

      Delete
  3. Humans and their evergrowing population.. sometimes I feel all other kinds of NGOs should be converted to population control organisations all around the world n esp. India. Your poem is nice and convey the point strongly..

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. You raise a wonderful point about NGOs. We have too many of them in India. A few of them could become a little more useful, no doubt.

      Delete
  4. I never even gave a thought about crows eating eagles eggs, this simply shows even the smallest of kind can be dangerous..nice poem :)

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Crows don't actually eat eagles' eggs, Najim. I was being metaphorical. Exaggeration of truth: poetic license, you see.

      Delete
  5. good poem Tomichan. And isn't the pic that of a vulture?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Could be, Anupam. Orcha is a place where vultures could find more natural habitats than eagles. I could be wrong. But I'm letting it be. This is a poem, you see :)

      Delete
  6. It has such hidden meanings and depth.You are a great poet.Loved this one.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Glad to hear that, Ankita. I'm not a great poet, I express certain deeply felt emotions...

      Delete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

The Adventures of Toto as a comic strip

  'The Adventures of Toto' is an amusing story by Ruskin Bond. It is prescribed as a lesson in CBSE's English course for class 9. Maggie asked her students to do a project on some of the lessons and Femi George's work is what I would like to present here. Femi converted the story into a beautiful comic strip. Her work will speak for itself and let me present it below.  Femi George Student of Carmel Public School, Vazhakulam, Kerala Similar post: The Little Girl

Break Your Barriers

  Guest Post Break Your Barriers : 10 Strategic Career Essentials to Grow in Value by Anu Sunil  A Review by Jose D. Maliekal SDB Anu Sunil’s Break Your Barriers is a refreshing guide for anyone seeking growth in life and work. It blends career strategy, personal philosophy, and practical management insights into a resource that speaks to educators, HR professionals, and leaders across both faith-based and secular settings. Having spent nearly four decades teaching philosophy and shaping human resources in Catholic seminaries, I found the book deeply enriching. Its central message is clear: most limitations are self-imposed, and imagination is the key to breaking through them. As the author reminds us, “The only limit to your success is your imagination.” The book’s strength lies in its transdisciplinary approach. It treats careers not just as jobs but as vocations, rooted in the dignity of labour and human development. Themes such as empathy, self-mastery, ethical le...

Mahatma Ayyankali’s Relevance Today

About a year before he left for Chicago (1893), Swami Vivekananda visited Kerala and described the state (then Travancore-Cochin-Malabar princely states) as a “lunatic asylum.” The spiritual philosopher was shocked by the brutality of the caste system that was in practice in the region. The peasant caste of Pulayas , for example, had to keep a distance of 90 feet from Brahmins and 64 feet from Nairs. The low caste people were denied most human rights. They could not access education, enter temple premises, or buy essentials from markets. They were not even considered as humans. Ayyankali (1863-1941) was a Pulaya leader who emerged to confront the situation. I just finished reading a biography of his in Malayalam and was highly impressed by the contributions of the great man who came to be known in Kerala as the Mahatma of the Dalits . What prompted me to order a copy of the biography was an article I read in a Malayalam periodical last week. The article described how Ayyankali...

The Irony of Hindutva in Nagaland

“But we hear you take heads up there.” “Oh, yes, we do,” he replied, and seizing a boy by the head, gave us in a quite harmless way an object-lesson how they did it.” The above conversation took place between Mary Mead Clark, an American missionary in British India, and a Naga tribesman, and is quoted in Clark’s book, A Corner in India (1907). Nagaland is a tiny state in the Northeast of India: just twice the size of the Lakhimpur Kheri district in Uttar Pradesh. In that little corner of India live people belonging to 16 (if not more) distinct tribes who speak more than 30 dialects. These tribes “defy a common nomenclature,” writes Hokishe Sema, former chief minister of the state, in his book, Emergence of Nagaland . Each tribe is quite unique as far as culture and social setups are concerned. Even in physique and appearance, they vary significantly. The Nagas don’t like the common label given to them by outsiders, according to Sema. Nagaland is only 0.5% of India in area. T...

Rushing for Blessings

Pilgrims at Sabarimala Millions of devotees are praying in India’s temples every day. The rush increases year after year and becomes stampedes occasionally. Something similar is happening in the religious places of other faiths too: Christianity and Islam, particularly. It appears that Indians are becoming more and more religious or spiritual. Are they really? If all this religious faith is genuine, why do crimes keep increasing at an incredible rate? Why do people hate each other more and more? Isn’t something wrong seriously? This is the pilgrimage season in Kerala’s Sabarimala temple. Pilgrims are forced to leave the temple without getting a darshan (spiritual view) of the deity due to the rush. Kerala High Court has capped the permitted number of pilgrims there at 75,000 a day. Looking at the serpentine queues of devotees in scanty clothing under the hot sun of Kerala, one would think that India is becoming a land of ascetics and renouncers. If religion were a vaccine agains...