MY LATEST POEM ' HELPLESSNESS '

                                                                            

 ( Photo Muthi Camp Tents ... Photo Courtesy Vijay Kaul )

(Helplessness)

The refugee tents
Can drape a curtain over our wounds,
Hide our nakedness,
Mask the absence of milk for the baby,
The dwindling medicine for the sick,
And the few grains of rice left in the canister.

But no drape, no shutter, no shade
Can hide helplessness.

We saw this helplessness in the silent gaze of our gods,
Their eyes fixed, mute, as the hammers fell,
As the guns roared in the hands of our tormentors.

We saw this helplessness in the sacred thread,

The Janew or Gayatri, our protector,
When the killers pointed their barrels at us.

Helplessness is my little daughter,
My brightest, sweetest child,
Playing  in  the mud outside the tent.

Helplessness is my own failure to give her,
A doll, A storybook,  A new dress for the Navreh.

“My child, my darling little one,
What right have I to your laughter,
To your tiny, trusting eyes,
to your playfulness in this exile?
When all I carry is this helplessness.”

( Avtar Mota )

CHINAR SHADE by Autarmota is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-No Derivative Works 2.5 India License.
Based on a work at http:\\autarmota.blogspot.com\.