}} To Walk the Earth |

Poetry at Sangam

SangamHouse

 










To Walk the Earth

I swallow a different truth each day.

I rip the shells and pound the husks,

expecting life to erupt in the language

of each day.
 

I keep stepping towards and stepping

around the prophecies that are quoted verbatim,

even as my land hails its nuclear precision

and America hails its gun-toting hallways.
 

Why have the Arabs not raised their voices,

and why do my neighbors practice impotence?

Why has the crudeness of oil become the

lifafa* within which life stammers on its way
 

to a postal address? I swallow a different truth

each day. These are the most peaceful times

in earth’s storied history, a sociologist

might gauge. I swallow a different truth
 

each day. Desire is the price I pay

for every desire I consume. A kiss

consumed, a kiss gone. It isn’t my place

to question the transience as such,
 

given that I’m prone to buying into

karma and all. For every desire I consume,

it’s desire I nurse. I swallow a different truth

each day. Morality’s a tricky thing when
 

God answers to Beyoncé, and the

mulberries are blossoming up to

twice their given size. We’re even

manufacturing babies, I suppose fruits
 

were a given. We’re even renouncing

faith, I suppose addiction was the

next best thing. In a Palestine of my

imagining, a child weaves
 

a school project from a wounded wraith.

I swallow a different truth each day.

I wish to be in Palestine, nestled beneath

the arithmetic of pines and a land so
 

closely sewn to my own. There are

no more angels, let this be known.

We’re fighting wars. We’re fighting

ghosts. We’re fighting the tides.
 

We’re fighting those last few inches

that Antarctica holds on to as though

it were holding Jesus in plumes.

I swallow a fistful of tablets, even the

 
body must find its way to the truth.

In Japan, single people are living in

clusters of pods. In Japan, cherries

are erupting across acres of disarray.

 
I swallow a different truth each day.

I want to believe in the inherent goodness

and majesty of my land. I want to

believe that the Vedas and the Koran

 
weren’t mimicking a radio channel

whose only claim is the least number

of ad breaks. I want to believe that

purity is the vessel on which all of us

 
float, as these oceans summon their

sagas in wake. Night has swallowed

one half of the earth. Perhaps morning

will cleanse these steps of the muck.

 
I swallow a different truth each day.
 
 
 
← Siddharth Dasgupta