RISING FROM RUINS

Days’ and nights’ of fall have puffed

your body with fill of stale rain

letting  moisture of anxiety

explode in the air like some bio- bomb

scaring people of  some imminent collapses--

of walls or old roofs or of relationships

built on the base of selfish enjoyments.

Skeletons drop from the community’s cupboard

when girl children are treated as witches in womb;

words scripted in male hands

whip women into a strange silence;

and we, the timid folks  squirm

into a corner of our old  houses in fresh ruins

smelling of damp love where we huddle

 under  leaking polythene roof,

not knowing in our tiredness

 when love was thrust upon us

under the cruel  gaze of some ominous stars

until the blood-red moon revealed some pathetic  wounds

between   our injured and stained thighs

and a ghastly  horror in our estranged eyes.

Failing to hold my  fragile breath

in the midst of noises from the street

mocking my painful retreat,

I turn into a hibernating toad under the ruins

that think of my better days in the offing

therefore, of hope do I  so firmly sing.

Comp. n copy right:

Saroj k. padhi,06/09/14