Songs of Going South

By: Siddharth Mehrotra

Narrated by: Virtual Voice

Songs of ‘Going South’ whisk the reader away on a voyage with startling impressions of landscapes, storms, battles, and animals. Each poem is an arrested moment in an imaginary journey across North America, from the California coast to the Caribbean Sea. From piebald calves in a peaceful countryside to a lonely cloud above lofty peaks, the eyes are led to wander through beauty and sorrow, tranquility and strife, always at the edge of things.

Myths and legends abound in the foundations of reality. History is recorded in fossils, while reality in the form of a bristlecone pine marks the continuation of ancient times into the present. The ghosts of good and evil continue their dance with the melting of glaciers, the withering of trees, and the draining of marshes. Resolution is not even a milestone in the cycles of destruction and rejuvenation. With each terrible storm, the deserts of life, literal and figurative, bloom afresh.

The staves and cutlasses of sacrosanct ideas, fond hopes, and unshakeable beliefs fall as they clash over the ages. The earth trembles with the stamps and shouts of battle. Tridents, magic wands, ray guns, and rockets splinter standards and spill poisons, as much in the mind as on land and sea. Who can find a victor when the mighty clash?

The hunter, the hunted, the mythical, and the real face their own dragons, while the lowly mouse goes about its own business with no fear of human beings. Ultimately, the lure of magical worlds is not for everyone. Sometimes fact gives what fantasy merely promises, but that may not be enough for those who want more.