Nightingale
I lost my hope,
And I was tightened with a rope.
I was like a bear in a sore head,
And I said,
‘Wash the cynicism with soap’.
I encountered nightingale
In the gale.
Sprang away from me,
Whining at me to see,
To make me hale.
– Akeef Ahamed
The Unbearable Lightness of Death
“If you surrendered to the air, you could ride it”
Toni Morrison – Song of Solomon
Half-bent under the hefty bundle of firewood
Worn like a crown of thorns
Upon her sorrow-riven head of greying hair
Tied into a clumsy bun
The tea-plucker hastened along
The railroad flanked by tall blades of
grass and other weeds
The shortest way home.
Her fading green saree with white roses and hibiscus
And her light green jacket looked long past theirdays.
In spite of the crushing weight of life without hope
Her mind walked home quicker
Than her aching arthritic legs
To her husband dying slowly of cirrhosis
And to their only son destined for the same fate
But just a little behind him.
When, upon the narrow black bridge
Spanning the yellowish waters of the Mahaveli river
She registered the train speeding towards her,
(Its deafening roar having been drowned
in the ever louder call of duty in her heart
and mind all this long)
It was too close now even for a close shave;
Without a hint of malice, without even intent
The next instant, the train sent her flyinglike a bird
Down over the railings of the bridge
Into the rapids of the angry river
More than fifty feet underneath.
Maybe, at long last,
Free of the unbearable weight of life,
She surrendered herself to the air
So she’d ride it like a bird.
– Jayashantha Jayawardhana
