The Balance of Brahmaputra

By Dr. Anamika Nath

In the whisper of Brahmaputra, in knowing the calm before the rage;
in the weight of water, heavy with prophecies, the windows will shatter
and the pillars will not hold. In seeing what must be salvaged
and in saving it; boarding up with trembling hands,
in staring the tempest in the eye, in bracing for the monsoon head-on
in the roar of it, in how you were caught in the spin;
in the fields turned to the river, and the rice submerged,
in seeing the earth reshaped and in facing it;
in the aqua whipping in; in how all your fears were one
in the eye of it: forces clashing to their core; in the breaking point;
and burst. In what you thought was unmovable:
structures gone to fragments, in what you believed would last forever:
lands turned to liquid, homes swept to the Luit.
trees bent to earth; the shattering of silence,
the joining of friend and stranger, in how all the villages became one,
in the chemistry of survival: hope fused in the current
In the makeshift houses, in the tents of brotherhood
and boats from banana pseudo-stems
in forgetting about individual religion and community rifts,
the hatred men have for men. In the aftermath,
in what it did to our land.
In knowing it will return, and in chanting its name
in songs, folklores and Bhaona
carving it in memory for its next rise; its bane and balance,
We, the Luitporia.


Notes: Luit- Another name for river Brahmaputra.
Bhaona- A street art form of Assam, India that depicts mythology.
Luitporia- Family of Brahmaputra.