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Earth Stride and other poems by Anu Majumdar

Earth Stride and other poems by Anu Majumdar

Earth Stride


History is instant,
nothing stops its stride —
an earthquake, a doorbell
a gunshot
a flower
unravels the hour.

Everything waits 
in the shelter of the heart,
Prayers shaking 
through wild thoroughfares —
utterly bereft,
yet fragrant.


Tongue


The tongue walks
Through battlefields at dawn,
Rolling with the giant winds 
Tramping through fields
Swaying with flowers in combat 
To drown the gun-fires in your heart.

This tongue can walk on ice
Gasping as destinies freeze,
Until its fire burns them all
To submission.
The tongue even has the eyes —
All seeing, of another earth.

Now it speaks on the tarmac
Races down highways
Chases every spark of Light 
To its target —
Hidden but awake, its dives through seas
Till you can finally believe —

That the truth 
Of just one soul 
Singing with a burning tongue,
Silent as a great mountain —
Will conquer the world.
Children will then speak
Their tongues fragrant as jasmines.


Learning to Speak


Don’t tell me with words 
What you can speak with your heart.
Don’t say with your heart
What your soul can resound
Through this great wide world
Now just an open wound,
Where every disaster loaded mind
Carries missiles of self-destruction.

Speak to me with mountains,
Where rivers run with the sun,
Where wheat fields are turning golden,
Where children play without guns.
Where each hatred is cured
Every bitterness silenced with love,
Till your great seeing eyes enter mine
With the symphony of the earth.


Invisible Line


It is summer.
Blood is the colour
Of our robbed identity

This is the truth
You have no power
To deny.

We are the children
Who will not fail
Will never fail.

The sun 
Will seek us out 
Wherever the line turns red.


Visible Line 


As you win
The sun rises higher than the rubble.
Every dead bone, smile, heart —
Watches the line
 You refuse to see.

Maybe, you will win.
Thousands dead and counting -
Your trophies are for all to see.
And every day now, you vow
Never to stop.

But what if death  
Trounces this victory?
For they will always be alive,
In the rubble, in the sky.
Always.

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