creative writing on environmental justice
Varun U. Shetty is a writer and critical care physician. He grew up in Mumbai and lives with his partners in Shaker Heights, Ohio. His work has appeared or forthcoming in Frontier, Five South, Cleaver, Hobart, Healing Muse, Complete Sentence, and others. He won the 2022 F. Sean Hodge Prize for Poetry in Medicine. You can read more about him at www.varunushetty.com.
After Hokusai’s Breaking Waves (Ink on silk)
The sea and the cliff
embrace like wrestlers,
he is merciless
gutting him with his waves.
Above, the sky is sparse,
and the trees are blurring in the wind.
What of the lake
at the foot of this cliff?
An audience of clouds gather
and the water leaves in ripples.
A village watches from a distance.