Artwork: On Kashmir
By Jyotsna Dwivedi
Artwork by Jyotsna Dwivedi
Among the 20 snowy mountains,
Bloody hands grew like weeds to the sky,
As the blackbird glided across, silently,
The only thing moving was its dark eyes.
It should have noticed the crawling shadows that stopped belonging to ‘people’
– ‘who belong to their own land’.
It should have noticed the fumes rising out of their whispers,
Whimpering ‘what about us, our children, our land’.
The bruised apples that still look shiny in the far off markets.
The pashmina that is synonymous to its geographical indicator,
for many a territory in tasavvur.
But the blackbird glided on,
Its steady wings riding upon the air current,
To some other land,
Across some other river/mountain/valley.
Note:
The artwork and poem are inspired after reading the first verse of Wallace Stevens’ poem, “Thirteen ways of looking at a blackbird”:
Among twenty snowy mountains,
the only moving thing,
was the eye of the blackbird.
Bio:
Jyotsna Dwivedi is a visual artist working in Delhi. Her work revolves primarily around the themes of Violence, Women and Sexuality, Memories and their meanings in our life. She also maintains a daily blog here.
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4 Responses to “Artwork: On Kashmir”
A moving, heart rending poem by artist Jyotsna on the tragic situation in Kashmir. The deafening silence on the cry of it’s children. Where there is victory for None. Only defeat for all. You and me. So Take away the bullets. Take away the guns. They destroy the Paradise that is Kashmir.
This is an excellent incorporation of the source poem which I have read in my Masters
Thanks!
You have used local imagery – and the use of tasavvur especially – creating the idea of fleeting concerns that get evaporated with the wind. To me the black bird is like a metaphor for the short attention spans of we, humans.