Marina, Madras Poem by Ananta Madhavan

On the high road, versifying cyclists
Tinkle their bells and swerve like silver fish,
Evading lorry-whales and motor-sharks.
The traffic flows through banks of tenements,
Clogs like the drainage, moving honk-prodded,
Between raw houses, few gardens, but some with lofty trees,
Advancing slowly to the verge of the city,
Where the sea holds the land in a long embrace.

Here on the beach there's an end to sultry squalor;
The festering 'I' can almost be surrendered
To three immensities: water, sand and sky.
Ego-isles recede, mere specks to one who soars,
Imagining the scene of that creation myth
Of Siva and the churning of the sea.