After The Flood

For Chennai

(A southern city in India ravaged by floods that killed hundreds and left millions homeless in Nov-Dec 2015)


The floods plotted resistance against all things good.
They took the grieving clouds and filled up floors, rooms, ceilings, streets... Lungs.
Made wooden logs out of human bodies
Sent them afloat to random addresses without breath.

News channels witnessed the sights.
Grey, murky coffins of dreams
ashen, waxed wastes of lives un lived
the heaviness of loss still damp in the sky.

Someone please dry the vapors. Man is unlearning his past here:
All possessions are gone. Not a brick left to build a future.
The dripping mache of his insurance papers
can only sculpt walls of despair.

How he suffers in nature's crime...
This flood is dateless, endless.
His tears swim in its spate
like soft moss swimming in a sea of sadness.

Seasons have reasons hidden in their folds
But what mysterious reason this
that a retreating monsoon caused havoc with floods?
Devastated thousands, brought them to the edge of everlasting darkness.

After the floods, a strange quiet pervades the trees.
The yellowed fears in children's eyes seeks dry warmth.
Amidst all the swirling waters, mothers cry out for something clean to drink
With withered fingers, the men await a new dawn in the falling twilight.

Thank god, Hope never dries up. It never turns into a thing.
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