DROUGHT
S. Chandra Sekhar
There’s no spring here
In this sphere
It’s a mere summer
All the time and ever
There’s no flower
Neither dale nor meadow
Around or across is no lover
Not a gale or glade or willow
There’s not even the autumn,
But every even an auburn –
Brazen-bush-burn
unyielding and stubborn
The nights have no moon
And the stars left too soon
But the daily dawn has a sun
Whose spikes are fire-spun
This place, known as earth
Has little love-not even mirth
For people are of different ‘isms’
Undefined regional prisms
It rained here once, but in vain,
Where every memory’s plain
And living life, are badly maimed.
Hell-fire helps better bum all the dead
The gulping needs of religion
Left too little of oxygen.
Thus thrive in parts: breath
And alongside death.