By Manohar Shetty

We’re the avant-garde
Landscape designers
Leaving for posterity
A palette of red ponds,
Freshly dug earth
Sculpted into bald hills
And lunar ravines—home
To intrepid explorers in
Search of a touch of green,
A single flower, a fossilized
Feather and it’s said the source
Of a mythical river that
Once rippled with fish
Leaping in the moonlight.

The banner image is of En Valle de la Luna courtesy of Wikipedia Commons and used here for representation purposes only.

Manohar Shetty has published several books of poems, including Domestic Creatures (OUP, N. Delhi) and Living Room (HarperCollins, N. Delhi). His poems have appeared in a number of literary journals including London Magazine, Poetry Review (London) and Atlantic Review USA. He has edited Ferry Crossings: Short Stories from Goa (Penguin India) and Goa Travels: Being the Accounts of Travellers from the 16th to the 21st Century, (Rupa). His new book Full Disclosure: New and Collected Poems, 1981 - 2017 (Speaking Tiger; 2017) is available for purchase here.