Poem: Beside Broken Clouds

Besides our hands clasped in
devotion at the face of misfortune
counting on the wand of God
to sway a sign in the room…
thus to record another will
for the New Testament's solace
Beside yesterday, beside broken clouds
I sunk back clutching my body with
the discipline of the whip, closing
my eyes as life goes blurred —

The world is ending up with you
next to me this comely dayspring
after we've had some coloured
moment of notes last night — all
written in a little short story of how
much time crawls slowly away…
leaving us handcuffed to this harassing
thought of a jailbird flapping its wings
yet wouldn't catch flight

As it has given, we are left to ourselves
to wonder and then let our inflated joy
wash itself into oblivion as we sit on
the edge of this river watching its flow
seizing everything we ever had —
including the still-body of our 3yo son —
because the underbelly of this river
has many things it feeds on. Like —
our wedding bells ringing through the
creeping darkness yet with tenderness
of our boy as the lightning with fire

Read Poem Catharsis, a poem written by Eshitha Barua