Day Fifteen #Na/GloPoWriMo

Day 15 Prompt

And now for our prompt (optional, as always).  K. Siva Reddy’s poem, “A Love Song Between Two Generations,” weaves together repetitions, questions, and unexpected similes with plain language. The overall effect is both intimate and emotional, producing a long-form meditation on what love is, what it means, and how it acts.  Today, we’d like you to write your own poem that muses on love, but isn’t a traditional love poem in the sense of expressing love between romantic partners.

Love in the times of uncertainty

 

I used to think I have a good core

till I discovered oil wells lying hidden in sandy depths

of all the times I must have birthed, rebirthed

human, cat, caterpillar, ant, lizard

amassing indifference like old wealth

indifferent to everything except accumulation

like rotting jungles, forests, trees

when they succumb

to pressure, and turn fossil

 

One wrong turn

a dig too deep and I tap into my potential

to erupt

erase the eastern sky,

with dark, dense energy

and set ablaze all the edges and all the pages

I have so carefully curated to

document my image—

how I’ve never savoured hot coals of hate on my tongue

never hated anyone—

even if they’ve done me wrong or

called me names because they’re racists are/or misogynists

No. Never. Hate is too heavy a word. Too abrasive.

The reason why we are where we are, I point out

like influencers on Insta, I'm convinced

I'm right.

 

I am all love,

Right?

 

But you’ve shown me my silence—

when I stone wall you

for days.

I can practice indifference like a fundamentalist practises her religion.

 

You, on the other hand, who never learnt how to thread

and alternate words, nods, pauses, concern

thread and alternate

kindness with understanding words

is always there

Always

when my silence is spent

and I return confused

if the lacunae before me

are my outpourings or past karma?

 

You are I are a Venn Diagram

so much of you I see but cannot reach

so much of me you see as a distant mystery

but there is an intersection where your inability to express

overlaps my practised self-preserving-indifference

our two in-actions, in-actives hold hands

in the middle—maybe this is love

 

Or could it be the line

that carves out two circles out of many universes

and places them next to each other

Perfectly

not smothering or othering

just the right amount of oblong

not big, not showy—

maybe, this is love

 

Thank you for stopping by and for your comments.