Nanda Devi is loosely based on the traditional Japanese Tanka structure of 5/7/5/7/7 syllables per verse. It was first published in the March-April 2016 issue of Direct Path.
Nanda Devi
Cloud and snow spume
drift about your summit
veiling your face
Ma Nanda Devi
fixing my gaze to eternity
*
Rising like a giant shard of
rock carved over a million years,
snow fields scoured by
avalanches, your steepled
peak a vast cathedral
*
Impossibly tall and steep
you rise abruptly over a
guardian ring of summits
witness to your inner realms of being,
the outer gorge of Rishi Ganga’s roar
*
Climbers say in higher climes
light contrasts with darkness, flower
leas with worn ridges, fear with elation
O paradox of the sublime
your name means Joy, enduring Joy
*
The veil lifts, was it the smoke of
fires lit by sages on your summit?
Your natural symmetry of two identical peaks
suddenly at ease
is visible from my cottage window.
—Neera Kashyap