Morning slips through my sheer curtains,
a fraud bearing light, peeling back its greys & azure,
My blanket’s 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 son’s 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 it’s 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)
