At crossroads of your Present-life,
They peddle God in paper cones
Of peanut pods of Afterlife.
There’s nothing wrong in once or twice
Partaking of those steaming nuts.
There’s nothing more composing, right?
But when you eat at every fork,
Not only have you wasted time,
You’re left with only empty shells.
Oh! Also sound and gassy fury.
To men who came to rock our gates,
Demanding where’s our National Flag,
Why not it stands on Freedom Day,
I asked the meaning of the Flag –
The Saffron, White, and Green, and Wheel –
They simply said it is our Flag
And matters not what else it means,
Except it is the National Flag,
And being so must be stood today
As high as any nation’s Flag,
And those who don’t, do not deserve
Protection of the National Flag.
And what becomes, I asked of them,
Tomorrow of this National Flag?
When lying on the streets and roads
We trample on our National Flag?
When choking up the gutters, drains,
We shovel off our National Flag?
When from the jaws of cows and dogs
We mangle out our National Flag?
They spit their betel on our gate,
And tied to it the National Flag.
It’s said you do a namaste
To show you hold no blades, no spikes;
With palm to palm, exposed forearms,
Forfeit the chance of blocking strikes;
By bowing, you present yourself
For anyone to smash your head,
Or fell the ready nape of neck,
Or cut your hair to shame instead.
It’s said you do a namaste
To show you trust them with your life.
But who’re we kidding with this tale?
Of course, it means you want a bribe.
It means you will not do what’s asked.
It means you want them gone away.
It means your job requires you to.
It means your parents made you say.
It means you wouldn’t touch their hand.
It means you’re good, not needed, thanks.
Again, she asks me whats-the-point,
The question that for half our time
She’s asked without being satisfied.
Again, I ask her whats-the-point.
I’ll tell and you will throw your arms
Incensed, “I just don’t understand!”
You’re tall, you’re fast, you’re quick to learn.
You’re everything your Grandpa wished.
He charged me with his library
To hold it for you, Little Miss.
He told me when to give you what:
The comic books of Indian Myth,
The pop-up Russian fairy tales,
The illustrated Chinese skits,
That German children’s geometry,
That Japanese abacus text,
And on and on for twenty years,
For every birthday and the next.
And for today, your very first,
He wished for you his warmest hug,
The one he only gave to me,
While others only got his shrug.
But as I can’t be with you now,
And mourning rules forbid all gifts,
I write a poem for your ears
And amber Grandpa’s love in this.
I only find a thread of thought
With turmeric on either end,
Awaiting where she always waits
Perfumed in filter coffee scents.
So tied up in my morning chores,
I must have missed her anklet bells.
And now my naked wrist must move
Unguided by her sacred spells.
Don’t try to do it everyday.
Too much, it seems. Too hard, it feels.
Instead, just do it for today.
It’s just the one thing. Just today.
And do whatever you can do –
You only have to do it once.
It’s just the one thing. Just today.
A morning comes with vacant bliss.
No thoughts, no to-dos, no concerns.
A silent rain on a silent street.
Some slurping mouths in window grilles.
Some arms receiving monsoon alms.
Some overflowing gratitude
Occluding lenses yet unwiped.
I climb a groaning tabletop,
Relieve the ticking clock of cells.
They trick you with the options, see?
They ask you of that stupid glass:
Half-empty, is it, OR half-full?
It’s not an OR at all, is it?
Half-empty it is AND half-full.
The silver lining AND the cloud.
You’re damned if you see only one.
Unbridled optimism trips.
Untempered pessimism chokes.
Don’t toss a coin for how it lands.
Just spin it. Let both sides be one.
Through pages of historic texts,
I hear a whisper in my ear –
What if? What if it had been you?
What if you faced their fated fear?
What if you’re plucked and thrown in cells
Too small to even stretch your arms?
What if you’re stranded on a beach
With nothing and no one around?
What if the scourge of war is here
And you survive and have to live?
What if you lose your everything
Including use of tongue and limbs?
What if the only thing you have
Is consciousness on fancy’s wings?
Your little tricks of solitude,
You claim they give you fortitude –
The poetry you memorise,
The chess you try to play in air,
The zazen that you daily sit,
Can they sustain you when you’re there?
And if they cannot, what’s the point?
What here-and-now do you profess
When every little stimulus
Erects in you a wall of stress
On which you hit and hit your head?
There’s more punishment than is crime.
There are no rules that will not break.
Entitlement to treatment fair
Is blowing candles on a cake.
The things you practice when you’re safe,
Unless you practice when you’re not,
Are simply pastimes, hobbies, fun,
And not survival skills you thought.
Minakhi Misra 