The Unfinished Sea
Arya Gopi
Once he drew the ocean
with a fistful of blue pencils—
the light one for shallow hush,
the dark for where whales might hide.
Hours passed.
I called him for lunch,
twice.
He didn’t look up.
This sea isn’t finished yet,
he said,
without lifting his hand—
as if I’d insulted the tide.
Outside, the world had shifted
to afternoon.
Leaves fell. A crow called.
He was still tracing waves—
not copying them,
but conversing.
His feet were cold.
His neck bent like a reed.
Still he stayed,
surfacing storms
from the edge of a page.
I sat near him,
quiet,
as though watching
a real sea unfold.
Later, he asked,
Do you think oceans ever get tired
of holding so much?
And I didn’t answer.
I only placed my palm
on his back, lightly—
like a shoreline
learning to stay.
Dr Arya Gopi is a bilingual poet and translator working in English and Malayalam, with more than ten published books, including six Malayalam poetry collections. Her English collections include Sob of Strings (2011) and One Hundred Lines of Discords (2023). She has received over fifty national and international literary awards, including the Kerala State Sahitya Akademi Kanakasree Award. Her work has appeared in journals such as Indian Literature, Guftugu Magazine, Muse India, Teesta Review, Modern Literature International Journal, World Literature Today, and The Usawa Literary Review, and has been translated into Hindi, English, Kannada, and Bengali.
She has represented Malayalam literature at international festivals of letters in Imphal (2019), Shimla (2022), and New Delhi (2024), and was invited by the Vilnius UNESCO City of Literature to present Kozhikode’s literary culture to young audiences. In 2023, she was shortlisted for the Melbourne UNESCO City of Literature’s global Slam-O-Vision competition, becoming the only Indian poet on the shortlist.
Dr Arya Gopi is currently a resident fellow at the 2025 Poetic Frequencies Residency, hosted by Karlsruhe, Germany, and Heidelberg UNESCO Creative Cities, where she is exploring video poetry. She continues her role as Associate Professor and Head of the Department of English at The Zamorin’s Guruvayurappan College, University of Calicut, Kerala. She also serves on the executive committee of the Malayalam Mission under the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, Government of Kerala, and is a recipient of the Sharjah International Book Festival Translation Grant.
Email: aryagopi@gmail.com