Tonight I witnessed poverty
Saddled
Squatting on the pavements
Keeping their bodies warm
With the food of burning fire
Ignited by hunger and scraps of paper
And … lean sticks,
Collected and looted from the garbage
And pavements…
As weak and tender as their rotting bones
And dried up bodies
Hungry eyes cooking meek ‘ rotis’
Dipped in the sweat of their brown
And tarnished faces
Exhaustion writ large
Famished babes
Sucking the empty, dangling teats
To draw out an ounce of anything
That could drain the nectar from its mother
Rows and rows of ravenous fire
Burning in – and burning out-
Rising up, up and up
To reach some hope for tomorrow
Another day spent…
Another morn…
Life drags on…
Vacant eyes follow me home…
~Shobha Diwakar
Jabalpur, India
Indian Periodical
Indian Periodical
very touching and beautiful poem.
thank you Ms Naik for your appreciation
Poverty witnessed and well exposed by Ms. Shobha Diwakar!
Pitiable is the plight of the pavement dwellers squeezed with acute poverty!
The horror of hunger-
No wherewithal to satiate!
Seems, endurance the meal
To the suffering lot!
Burning fire is fortunate
To get its food from nowhere!
But alas, the poor
Retire empty-stomach
To sleepless nights!
Not a day’s ritual at that!
Spectacle of unfed babies
Sucking empty teats
Of starved mothers
A heart-rending scene!
Will they see the light
At the end of the tunnel?
thank U OKRS ji for your beautiful poem in support of life’s reality