Count Every Breath: A Climate Anthology, edited by Vinita Agrawal, is a collection of works that sharply posit the stark reality of climate change. It is an artistic anthology, as the name suggests, and Agrawal writes, “Count Every Breath is, in essence, a continuation of the first [anthology], even though it carries a spine of its own and stands firm on its own feet.”
In the opening lines of “Ash,” CP Surendran talks about his father’s relationship to a mango tree that he’d planted long back in his life:
“The mango tree that my father planted, and nursed
Through spotted leaves, blighted blooms, spalted wood,
And in whose drip-line and shade he sat and wrote gibberish…”
Climate change and us
What will it take for us to see the ubiquitous and unconditional love that a human might harbour for a tree? More immediately, the foundation threatened under the guise of ecological exile is saddening. When the personal becomes the political, the conversation, Surendran argues, must be inclusive of the natural world, despite our desperate urge to anthropomorphise it. This rightly reminds us what Peter Wohlleben said in The Hidden Life of Trees: What They Feel, How They Communicate:
Discoveries from a Secret World: So, in the case of trees, being old doesn’t mean being weak, bowed, and fragile. Quite the opposite, it means being full of energy and highly productive. This means elders are markedly more productive than young whippersnappers, and when it comes to climate change, they are important allies for human beings.
In little cramped-up boxes, breathing becomes natural for Homo sapiens. This can offer a microcosmic view of the macrocosmic world. Soon people will have outdoor units inside their flats, and the outside world will be condensed and rolled into little boxes. Joseph Schreiber, in “A Western Canadian Lament For The Seasons,” echoes the same perception:
“we’ve seen domes
of heat take lonely
lives in cramped
apartments –tinder dry
forests ignite and
burn for months, a
village record
a record forty-
nine above
just days before
flames lay claim and
winds bear smoke
from its funeral pyre
and other distant fires”
The universe is gradually transformed into an oven, amiably seasoning human steaks and
barbecuing living souls with pleasure. The wildfire that Schreiber sees spreads not in
the forests but in the cities, slowly turning into a “funeral pyre”, and the “smoke” is the ensuing
paranoia, leading to an epidemic that might forge “other distant fires”. In her poem “Acoustic Engagement,” Kunjana Parashar writes about how scientists built a loudspeaker to replicate the coral ecosystem, striving to “restore all such reefs dying of marine heatwaves with the medicine of music…” She writes:
“And the fish
the fish came back to the rubble following
the sun of sounds.”
Their advancement toward the rubble unequivocally hints at annihilation. The resultant source of the music may not be the loudspeakers but boats and ships. Disrupting echolocations or auditory senses drift away into “the rubble.”
Even birds aren’t left out while discussing climate change. Birdsong has a way of spelling the desolate and the populous. But when the songs are not their own and are infectiously cloneable they spread like a virus. Kavita Ezekiel Mendoca writes in “Meeting of the Birds”:
“on rooftops scattered with fallen leaves to have further discussion,
a meeting after the meeting,
cell phones turned off
photography forbidden
in both meetings.”
The rooftops exhibit mobile towers and satellite dishes, which slither down one’s throat or spread their tentacles in the guise of wires. Perhaps the waves they transmit bear cryptic messages that birds clone, giving way to their aphonic state or sanctified mutterings – eventually losing the melody and augmenting the harmony in discord.
“Can I become a tree?
As I rampart the sinew
with my root embedded
in her tissue, I’ll bloom
like a hibiscus:
the blush will endorse
my bloodline.”
In “Hibiscus,” Kiriti Sengupta puts forth his desire to become a tree, discussing the genetic code with dexterity. Perhaps ramparting the “sinew” – bark, phloem, and cambium – was a means to protect the heart (read pith) from all the trouble. There’s a spruce in Sweden – regarded as one of the oldest trees on the earth, about 9,500 years old. “Blooming” like it would mean lasting 120 times longer than the average human lifetime. But here, “Hibiscus” is not a mere plant, it is a key to a revolution, a step towards kindling humanity. With the world being uprooted, developing a colony of hibiscus will ensure longevity.
Will we survive?
For Mani Rao, “survival games” can suffice as a bummer. In “Lately, the Colour of Water,” she wields:
“To survive in a desert drink piss
To lose a bloodhound cross a stream
Just some myths for the brave
But when sewage raids artesian wells
and tap water’s the colour of chocolate
It’s too late for survival games”
Like Odysseus, ready to cross the ocean but petrified by the cyclops’ presence, Rao here urges him to “cross.” This act might help to counter the hindrance. Some myths are best obliterated. A time might come when clean drinking water becomes a myth. However, loosening the magnesium to blend with water unleashes havoc. This is further reinforced by the discovery of a harmful substance known as nonylphenol in drinking water across India by Indian environmentalists.
Sometimes we leave things behind in the sand for the sea to take into its bosom. Michelle D’costa’s assertion in her poem “The Exploitative Art of Collecting Shells” echoes this:
“No one will know I was here.
My footprints won’t last.”
Rising sea levels, as D’costa reminds us, will engulf the world, which will be eyed by thousands and millions of dead seagulls. Nobody will come to know of the little child who held her father’s hand and walked past the waves along the beach, nor about the lovers who met for the last time here before parting. Instead, the footprints will dissipate.
Pervin Saket ideates the need for poetry in the extracted lines below from her poem “Too Much Faith.” Turning time backward can only be achieved by mandating reverse action. This is not a superfluous act – the words should be sown in the heart as “seeds”, as Saket believes; only then will the “surprised green” blossom in the face of greyness.
“You need a verse with such truth
it can reverse melting glaciers
and freezing sanctions, resurrect forests
back into surprised green
and list each ancestor of the last rhino.”
Sometimes, it is impossible to reckon whether the poems in Count Every Breath describe a world that exists today or one we’e heading towards. Given the unpredictability of climate change, this is apt. The despair takes control, leaving us in a state of chaos, as described in “The Problem is Yours Now,” where Salil Tripathi writes:
“Trees fell and pounding thunder, flared up in the sky
Cloudburst shattered twilight, as if the end was nigh
Flooded farms and drowning streets – night and night again”
Economic growth, as Tripathi writes, doesn’t care for rivers, hills, and jungles. As long as cash inflow is guaranteed, what evokes dread and beyond is not a significant issue. Civilisation has advanced, making us a peaceful, cooperative, and expressive species. However, it has also taken us to the hunter-gatherer era. Decisions foster further discord because they are fragile, confused, and flawed. Almost everyone is aware of the necessity of switching from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. But some corporations and governments still think turning to coal will bring economic gain. Ultimately, “the earth” has changed, not the people.
“as if a chain were passed through every wrist,
as if a chain were tied from hip to hip.
The sun does what it does because the earth tilts.”
The lines above are from “Made in the Tropics” by Vijay Seshadri – he evokes an alarming image. Celebrating the end of the world for entertainment is common – like in the film Don’t Look Up, which depicts the imminent arrival of a killer comet and the tangible response to the threat. The comet jumps out of its orbit around the sun and becomes more apparent as it approaches Jupiter’s moons.
In 2013, a huge meteor burnt out in the sky over Chelyabinsk, Russia. At least 7,000 buildings were destroyed. Outbreaks such as this can take place again – as Seshadri says, “The sun does what it does because the earth tilts.” The funny thing is people might celebrate this devastation.
“We can be bards, midwives, lexicographers.
We can be gods intoxicated
by the ravaged sobriety
of new forms
birthed into being.”
In her poem “Forensic Flowers” (excerpted above), Sridala Swami talks about endangered species and how they will be gathered in colonies. In her poem starvation becomes a process of fading, which people will cheer. The “new forms” are a formless void that will be “birthed into being.” Even Agrawal passes on the same perception in “The Central Asian Flyway and the Apricot Farmer of Ladakh.” She talks about the relentless pursuit of a farmer:
“Months of tending, watering,
nurturing, pruning, giving,
reduced to mush by pests.
His death-fossil of a back, broken.”
His decayed state amplifies the loss stemming from callousness and ignorance. He waits for death, seeking “the avian army”. Maybe the rise in temperatures, the birdless sky, and the marching advertising hoardings signify a realm like Dante’s Inferno.
Count Every Breath aesthetically puts together the works of poets with similar concerns. This is a war worth fighting. Literature, especially poetry, is deemed fit for the purpose.
Count Every Breath: A Climate Anthology, Vinita Agrawal, Hawakal Publishers.
Somudranil Sarkar is the author of C/O Bonolata Sen, a collection of Bengali short stories and the translator of Rabindranath Tagore’s My Growing Years.