Mist And Light Poem by Ananta Madhavan

This is a season when we are unsure
Of the changing climate’s hidden role.
Mid-November in Mysuru this year
Defies weather reports and forecasts.
Rain, long awaited, showered abundance
But the over-plus has also smothered us.
I like the early morning mist that hides the hill
In a tussar-silk sari, pallid grey. Life is still,
Particulars are erased.

Cloud-continents and fluffy pillows loom;
But I wait to see the stand-still ruptured
By sieved sunlight daubing streaks of colour
On the grey-wash of the sky. All things change,
And assume their wonted shapes and forms,
Their own identities, their distinct codes.
I have no time to be bored.

Tragedies happen everywhere.
The whipped bullock drags the heavy cart of hay,
A coughing youth must come on time to work,
Or forfeit his wages for the day,
And lose his dignity, when his kids and wife go hungry.
A small girl is ‘outed’ from the game by classmates;
A family of four is expelled from home
Because they cannot pay the room-rent.
A town is ransacked in a riot.
Each life is different, each sorrow
Deserves a modicum of sympathy.

The mist is lifting, now I see
The hill-crest in its multiple indents;
The granite of a rock-face is as distinct
As in a portrait of an aged peasant.

All life is bonded; every life is worth
Its difference and claim to identity.

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