}} LIGHT, AGAIN. by Smita Sahay |

Poetry at Sangam

SangamHouse

 










LIGHT, AGAIN. by Smita Sahay

Coal dust preserves within my cells
an agony that would otherwise be homeless.

These mines are my inheritance,
as they were for my ancestors.

My spine shivers as I step in.
Above  the horizon still bleeds.

Why do the living exhume pitch black ghosts?
Whose tribe was this now fossilized into coal?

What do we live for? What does one die for?
Someone calls out but the voices of men

sound hollow in these tunnels.
The air is damp with sweat and tears.
*
The earth whispers her secrets –

‘These coal lumps were once refugee
stars in search of a new home. As they landed

softly I took them into my folds and grew
around them a grief-hardened womb. Listen

they murmur a prayer for the sun to rise
and croon a cradle song to dead children.

The heart of a lost star, this coal lump
is crystalized absence, frozen time. Rest.’

I place my forehead on a cool black wall.

‘Outside, this lump fires engines
glows in the hearts of homes.

In a child’s liquid eyes this coal lump
gleams like a diamond.’
*
Her laughter is soft, toothless.
‘Nirjala’s daughter’ they call her

the women who have outlived
their own children.

Sleepless from a night shift
smeared in coal black I bury

my face into tufts of her baby hair.
‘Nirjala’s daughter’ I whisper.

Her fat fists dance willing the sun to rise.
Somewhere Nirjala smiles.

Dawn breaks. The shama bird
unfurls an auspicious song. Here

for now  draped in light
we are together once more.

 

 

 

← Smita Sahay