Moon
- Smita Agarwal (India)
Finally, the widow of the Sun,
Claws
off the grey veils
Dulling her;
She fights off the Palm
Attemptimg to imprison her
In its leaf-cage;
She demolishes the twenty storey
Tower block interrupting her;
She explodes onto the scene
Prima donna of the night
Generous with her light.
Now, she is the woman
Scouring the alleys of the old town
For her recalcitrant son
Out with dagger and gun.
I hear
her call out his name,
Repeatedly, as the dogs bark
And the battered police jeep
Plummets down the road, sirens screaming.
And, for all those dispossessed and orphaned
In way-out pockets of a lightless world,
She is that bowl of luminosity
Into which, because we exist,
More often than not, we let drop,
Love, compassion and humanity,
As small change ... as alms ...