“Have you also learnt from that secret from the river; that there is no such thing as time? That the river is everywhere at the same time, at the source and at the mouth, at the waterfall, at the ferry, at the current, in the ocean, and in the mountains everywhere and the present exists only for it, not the shadow of the past nor the shadow of the future.”

                                                                                                                                                                ~Hermann Hesse, Siddhartha

It is almost as if Renu Roy had these words at the back of her mind as she curated this collection of verse, which moves through the sections 'Life', 'Love', 'Nature' and 'Soul', with poems that connect through the powerful metaphor of a river. 
 

“May something here stay with you,” she inscribed in my copy. What stayed with me was the tantalising moods of the river that these poems encapsulate—from serene and peaceful, to wilful and capricious, to dark and mysterious, and to vast and infinite, mirroring the complexities of life itself.

The poems evoke the image of a river, which is often present in the background. This river, sometimes “seeping into compassion,” gently eddies and swirls, guiding the poetess to the vast oceans within herself. However, she expresses her frustration in acknowledging that this ocean remains unattainable, even in the face of her own deep longings (waters).

At times, the river manifests as fierce overflows that burst banks unexpectedly, and bring melancholy and devastation: “the river pulls back/after its pantomime of flood/it makes its way/to the door of mud houses/caked with desolation/many drown in their sleep/the benumbed, rasp on waking/amid the reek of mortality” (flood).

Other times, the river transforms into invisible subterranean streams: “these are torrents that flow through words/and become rivers that vanish into themselves/where do i look for the river if i cannot find the words that conjured them?” (rivers). 

Most importantly, the river carries within it the immortality of human existence. The poetess urges her readers to “listen to the voice of my river/its undisguised ardour as it turns the bend/i cannot leave my thumbprints in the water/for it carries with it my immortality” (thumbprints)

The poetess reflects that the course of the river teaches her that “she cannot bring the boat home with her/she ends where she has begun/and every question comes late” (her boat).

The cover of the collection suitably reflects the varying hues of the river: pale, fragile to vibrant, and its disposition at varying times—tranquil, energetic, mysterious, and other-worldly—and carries an inverted image of a river woman, complete with a tail fin.
 

What these watery images, carried through in the poems, illustrate is the river's omnipresence, it is everywhere; its omniscience, its all-seeing nature, and its intuitive understanding of universal truths, especially the boundless nature of existence, where the known experiences of life on Earth merge with the vast mysteries and eternities of the unknown; as well as its capability to integrate the inward depths of the mind with the outside world and beyond—to the world past knowing and unknowing.

The poem, returning home, captures it wonderfully: “we start from the core/of the ever-flowing thirst/of the river bed/and follow all streams that gurgle their way home”

The opening section of the selection, with sixty-nine poems titled ‘Life’, gathers verses that reveal the inherent chaos, imperfections, and challenges of life. Its untidy moments: “a bed unslept and unmade/fatigue dragging itself around, slipping into an overused robe/ in its cheerless role” (chores); its mute horrors: “when the walls and darkness close in/and the sorrow of an entire people/flows into deaf mists of apathy” (revolution); its crushing losses: “i know I am toying/with homegrown fables/in whispers of a lost language” (fable); and its unbounded joy: “in a bountiful world/in which the heart leaps/to the sound of an ancient siren/in the green gush of spring” (the choice).

The section on ‘Love’ unfolds this emotion in all its complexity within nineteen poems. It springs “when the birdsong sends me/its fluttering from above/i feel love come my way” (birdsong); “in the quiet passion of your embrace/wider and warmer/with constant newness” (conjured), and even “as you take me apart/layer by layer/drain me drop by drop/ to love is to learn the art of losing” (unanchored).

The sixteen poems on ‘Nature’ meld the external experience with nature into the poetess’s personhood. She says, “a boat is adrift in my reverie/in the hour/that shakes itself loose from the day/and is never the same again” (adrift); and there are times i am filled/with the giving of spring/the mellowness/of moss fields and winds/that caress the season” (giving); and “my tree yearns for its flowering/the leaves for their green/my day leans into its night/and i sleep in my garden/touched with the silver of moondust” (moonbeams).

And the twenty-eight poems in ‘Soul’ explore the unseen and the unknown, things beyond our universe, where the desire for unity with the Source is all. Here, the poetess says, “awakening happens/when no one is watching” (awakening). Her poem ‘ascetic’ immerses itself in the quest of ascetics, where they delve “into the mind of creation/into a vast nothingness/pulling rootedness from peaks and fire from the soul.” In her own pursuit for oneness with creation, she agonises, how “the craving for wholeness crushes me/i do not begin or end with myself/i must be all contained in the one”(passing).

This collection, which centres on the river and the river woman, portrayed as a mysterious and magical figure reminiscent of the women in Tolkien's 'The Lord of the Rings,' celebrates both the intangible and the tangible. The prose has a lyrical quality, a certain delicacy, and an ephemeral feel, infused with a sense of yearning. This longing is a recurring motif, representing a deep and persistent desire for something lost or unattainable. This may explain why the collection blends the familiar with the fantastical and juxtaposes the present with the unknown future, beyond our known future. I particularly enjoyed the titles in small caps and the zero use of full stop, flourishes that add a certain quirk and allure to its style.