Abha Das Sarma
The Earth is cracking
Men turning into bodies, women getting near beheaded,
Dogs and crows alternating in their attacks
On fluttering alates under the lighted street lamps,
A sign of the oncoming rain
On a full moon day, a time in India called 'Sharad Poornima'
When the immortal is bestowed from the above
To extinguish the blazing fires, the Agni Parikshas that continue
Of today's Sitas-
The earth is extending its tentacles and digging deep too
To gather moon's haloed nectar in its depths of gloom
At a time when
Temples are no haven and homes are unsafe
At a time when despair looms
And silence descends on human race,
At a time when knives attack all that is and was meant to be
Innocent and holy,
At a time such as now
The earth echoes and resounds
Its dead, the buried and the mothers
Immersed in the depths of its haloed nectar-
"Tell my children, I love them".
Note: Women were subjected to trial in the past, even those worshipped, and continue to face them even today.
Abha Das Sarma, is an engineer and management consultant by profession, Abha Das Sarma is passionate about writing. Besides having a blog of over 200 poems (http://dassarmafamily.blogspot.com), her poems have appeared in Muddy River Poetry Review, Spillwords, Sparks of Calliope, The Ekphrastic Review, Verse-Virtual, Visual Verse and Elsewhere. Having spent her growing up years in small towns of northern India, she currently lives in Bengaluru.
