She Has Been Restrained! ! Poem by Veeraiyah Subbulakshmi

Then,

when she came, as a young lass, with gentle steps,
her bangled hands and ringed fingers picked the,
fallen stars; foam of her smelt very fresh,
as she became the woman to swell to deliver,

Once 'Mother, She has come' I cried out loud,
Everyone was out and rushed to the bank,
to witness the arrival of a beauty pageant,
sniffed as hard as we could; smell of our soil,

New water arrived without fail for many years,
who had made her new, restrained her with shutters,
our ancestors were shocked, not seeing her presence,
during summer, but she would come to hold us tight,

Now,

everyone here is angry looking at Cauvery,
At the junction of barren boundaries,
The stone dam built by a chola the great,
Whose leg was charred to be black,

Standing on the bridge, view a few mile long,
Cauvery, who was unashamedly naked and sandy,
Even mud flippers are dead to be the specimen,
The seeds of grass and pulses grown on her body,

The flood gates are open to let the wind pass through,
The eye lids are closed and open; those dried too.
The skeletal Tamil farmers' feet are hardened as the rocks,
of embankment; thousands of rusty years old.

The shrunken stomach and the shortened human,
Where else can you see but in the dries spots,
The cities may be full of nerds with nuts and bolts,
But the villages are worn out; farmers are in slums.