by Anita Nahal
Layers of love and life are crumbling, some are mixing…some decomposing, some disappearing. It’s said humans are social animals, yet some are still unapologetically crude, arrogant, asinine. Some just don’t wish to be bothered. Some don’t respond. Or connect. Some are merely self-protecting. Some have no choice over the virus. Some say its punishment… even animals are ashamed of us. And Gods don’t know what more to tell us about kindness and giving. History hasn’t been good. The slave markets, lynchings, murders, rapes, opulence, greed, evil gratification, wars, conflicts, boats of begging refugees left to putrefy, leaving little kids famished, breathing their last on scalped beaches or with their small bodies burning without recovery, without mothers, crying and dying alone on impersonal makeshift tent hospital beds. Animals were not spared either. There’s an unusual hush. So eerie even a skeleton in a cemetery is scared, knocking on tombstones, begging other skeletons to keep him company for a while. Some humans could only hear themselves running in grey, opaque skies, densely crowded with cumbersome, soiled clouds standing around menacingly. And the sun didn’t want to join the uncalled-for cruel party. Stood afar pondering, “Shall I give them a bit of heat? Do they deserve it, yet?” On the sad flip, the streets had ample fresh air and the ozone was stronger. Trees too were a lusher green. One strength replaced by the other. Layers had almost crumbled, conflated, almost disappeared…darkened with soot still trying to remain alive like prettily enticing yet doomed embers on smoldering paper edges.
Poet biography:
Anita Nahal is a poet, professor, short story writer, flash fictionist, Children’s books author, D&I consultant and Chair Yoga consultant. Currently she is Adjunct professor at the University of the District of Columbia, Washington DC, USA. For more, please see: https://anitanahal.wixsite.com/anitanahal
Old Water Rat Publishing 