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The Weight Of Elsewhere | Poem

Shantashree Mohanty's poem on how the world keeps moving even amidst immense grief

Anupriya Yoga

Morning slips through my sheer curtains,

a fraud bearing light, peeling back its greys & azure,

My blanket라이브 바카라 been hogged, the alarms’ abuzz;

I pour the songs of my kettle into a mug

and then, sweep my way

through shimmering, slippery perspectives of being.

Elsewhere,

Cinders drown in the black flood of oblivion.

The newspaper screams with a sharp edge.

Each headline splinters.

Each image a combustion.

Wars. Displacement. Hunger.

Names dissolving into numbers,

Numbers dissolving into dust.

But I’m still here…

The ordinary chattering of a day

growing in the background;

My son라이브 바카라 laughter as he cuddle-wrestles with his dad

The sound of conch shells from the temple nearby.

Is this delight a betrayal?

To breathe, to love, to hope?

Somewhere a mother,

builds a cradle from rubble,

A father waits in line for bread.

Way past the sirens, a defiant nurse,

whispers a prayer to the wind,

beneath the weight

of a razing hospital roof.

And yet, my son, now up and about

pulls me in for a piggyback ride,

My dog-child wags his whole body;

as it라이브 바카라 time for his walk.

There are meals to be served,

Bills to be paid.

The present demands me,

to reschedule my guilt

and remind myself

that the Earth, keeps spinning

even when it grieves.

I gather the fractured pieces of my mind,

and put on some music.

I decide to trust Camus

and imagine Sisyphus to be happy.

(Shantashree Mohanty is a writer, mother and legal professional)

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