Issue Three: April 1, 2020
East Point Lighthouse, PEI
We stand at East Point Lighthouse, stare at a sign that reads: “The end of the world as we know it” and we mourn us.
We’re locked in a cellar full of mice and memories, side by side, blinking tube lights, but really we are waves that crest and foam by moonlight.
Comets shine themselves from nowhere and teleport us through dark matter, like silver-scaled monsters suspended for eons from museum rafters.
And the seals – angel-spirits hearken forth, plangent and playful, to buoy us and calm the plum-colored night.
Civilizing Halifax
The waters change colour like an oil spill depending on the time of day
Islands dot the surface disturb blue-grey placidity with their presence
The coastline so shapely she practically invites us to tamper with her
A warm open mouth calls for long-ships and lighthouses
Granite fingers grasp for air offer up bouquets of dwarf firs like pipe-cleaners
The audacity of a garden, Victorian order this close to the sea
Evidence of man everywhere chiseling civilization out of her rockface
Toronto in Spring
Eastern redbuds ring the circle adorn us with fuchsia petals blanket the asphalt into a carpet of auspiciousness
This trail of dharma a respite from house-holdering the business of tidiness and the tidiness of busyness
And so I want to lay down on them roll around on them scoop them up in my cupped hands drink them in with my pores
Rain them down on my head like a goddess in this temple to custodians of knowledge and lovers of beauty
We walk the circle like pradakshina, performing ceremony together once, twice, three times, never seeing those slivers shimmer and fall
Archana Sridhar is a poet and university administrator living in Toronto, Canada. A graduate of Bard College, Harvard Law School and a former Fulbright Scholar, Archana focuses on themes of meditation, race, motherhood, and diaspora in her poetry and flash writing. Her work has been featured in The Puritan, Barren Magazine, The /tƐmz/ Review, and elsewhere.
Photo credit: Soko Negash