Today’s poem for NaPoWriMo.
Birthdays are, for me, remembering mothers. They are the star of the day, are they not? Going through that climactic episode after 9 months of carrying and carrying and more carrying. I have a cousin who every year travels to spend his birthday with his mother. He said, she is the reason he has a birthday, so she’s the best person to celebrate it with. I agree.
.
The dry earth coughs up dust storms
While cattle scratch at the brownness,
Their tongues having forgotten
The sweetness of green grass.
But the sky is closed up like
a heart that has borne much pain,
And the clouds hold back the rain
As though in just retribution.
Would it be that the mewling of
slaughtered beasts and the gasps
of dying fish rose up from the earth
in pangs of collective wailing?
It could be that the heavens have
a thousand ears and a million eyes?
Maybe Nature communes with itself
In a language we have stopped hearing.
~~~
Australia has been experiencing drought for 6 years in a row. Cattle are dying and farmers are committing suicide.
by Arun Kolatkar
An old woman grabs
hold of your sleeve
and tags along.
She wants a fifty paise coin.
She says she will take you
to the horseshoe shrine.
You’ve seen it already.
She hobbles along anyway
and tightens her grip on your shirt.
She won’t let you go.
You know how old women are.
They stick to you like a burr.
You turn around and face her
with an air of finality.
You want to end the farce.
When you hear her say,
‘What else can an old woman do
on hills as wretched as these?’
You look right at the sky.
Clear through the bullet holes
she has for her eyes.
And as you look on
the cracks that begin around her eyes
spread beyond her skin.
And the hills crack.
And the temples crack.
And the sky falls
with a plateglass clatter
around the shatter proof crone
who stands alone.
And you are reduced
to so much small change
in her hand.
~~~
breaking through the shell
of night, dawn peeps, tremulous
at prisoner me
trying to break free
from a self-built prison
yet another day
as sleep fades like mist
and I wake yet again
into illusion
~~~
Carpe Diem prompt – the day begins
super large full moon
crawls through night peaking with pain
incandescent dawn
Haiku Heights #259 – Crescendo
3 o’clock
empty cafe
just me staring at a guy
staring into space
his thoughts crackle
into the summer air
nervous
hopeless
jobless
debts mounting
coffee going cold
no cash for a bun
while pastries shine
behind the glass
beckoning
I think of Jean Valjean
and his stolen loaf
and hope floats in
on a stray sunbeam
maybe just maybe
this man will meet
his Bishop
(written for the Bentlily prompt – go to a cafe and write about a person there)
Just Joyfulness 