Farmers sow flowers next to the iron rails placed by the Delhi Police in Ghazipur (Delhi-UP border) in 2021 Farmers sow flowers next to the iron rails placed by the Delhi Police in Ghazipur (Delhi-UP border) in 2021 
Heavy, ruthless bladeshaul and push debris away,excavate ghosts of history,demolish mosques, minarets.They can even uproot an old banyan,nests and aerial roots and all.Make way for bullet trains,remove stumps and boulders,clear battlefield obstacles,prepare firing positions.Iron claws of sharp rippersbreak down dense, resistant grounds.They know how to crush, clear, and level things up.
But when you are done with all of itYou still have to deal with these pollinatorsfiery, potent, soft, love-filledfalling out of bookssliding off tongues.You don’t need bulldozersto tear those defiant booksor to rip the loose tongues off.But what to do with them,escaping on the back of chance winds,riding on the wings of birds and bees,sliding on river waters,diving underneath the lines of a poempollinating without restrainthere, there, everywhere?
Light, yellow, dry, obstinate dustencroaches on fields, plants, petals,minds, and slippery tongues.See, how they burst out!Colonies of bright flowersWild smelling,holding onto this earth.Growing like hopefrom between the bladesof your rippersfrom under the tracksof your bulldozers.See, how they burst out!
Pratishtha Pandya, Gujarati
(Pratishtha Pandya is a bilingual poet and translator working across Gujarati and English. The first collection of her Gujarati poems Lalala... has been published by Navjeevan Samprat. She currently works as senior editor and writer with People’s Archive of Rural India, where she heads the creative writing section. She has also published in Etad, Kavita, Shabdasrishti and Indian Literature and was the recipient of Sahitya Akademi’s travel grant for 2017-18.)
This poem was originally published in the People's Archive of Rural India on May 4jiliplus, 2022.