Alive, I Rose

I manage to breathe

Somehow,

Struggling on, suppressed

From an invisible ridge

Missed by those

With a long nose

No grey building stands over me

(Yet)

I am still green and young

Still innocent, still hopeful

Until a metal something invades me,

Betrays me

Deroots me

Until life trickles out of me

Feel the cool aromatic soil

After the rain

Tis is me

Feel the brown branches entwined

Outside your window

Tis is me

I’m there in your taps, drains

Even in your build

But everyday I’m degraded

For crimes I did not commit

I’m spent ruthlessly

Contaminated by perfidy

And avarice

Until I’m brown

And ‘Impure’

Until life trickles out of me

I feel stifled

Suffocated

I am stuck in a vortex of confusion

An inescapable pain,

By using some

Destructive chemistry

That transparent devil

It is there;

In every inch of me

Digging and obstructing

Until this anomaly sinks

And kills every Thirp in me

One by one

Until life slowly trickles out of me

How forlorn!

How desolate!

I marvel at your bravado!

You create things out of me

While demolishing me

Releasing the

‘Smoke of dishonesty’

A grey gas of cupidity

I laugh at your scorn

Until life trickles out of me

Some more

They try to end this devastation

A few blessed souls

Between an unfortunate pandemic

Alive, I rose

Enamored by care

I rekindled in the sky

While mankind suffered in silence

As I did all this time

A few saviors,

Those who plant more of me

Those who use the solar

In plenty

I am humbled at your initiation

Grateful, I am

For this salve on my burning soul

To save whatever life is

Left in me.

By Rucha Katkar 

XII E