Rain Poem

It rained yesterday,

After an unending wait

Of summers

Stretched so long.

And I sat

By the window,

To sketch

Each falling drop

The way the earth smiled

Teased by the rains.

Lines that I could read

In the long summer nights

When we sat by our windows

And prayed for rains again.

This evening,

I read the Rain poem,

But the words had been
Washed away,

The lines had turned

Brown again.

There is no poetry in rain,
These days. 

Poems are not written...

On little green twigs

That grow in my garden and die

So soon.

About naked children

Running in streets

With joy

Soon to be lost.

Or about maple leaves floating

In pools of muddy water

On broken roads.

There is a woman

On the roadside.

Her skin, brown,

And hair,streaked with dust;

Her eyes are deep

Pits of emptiness.

Her lips are dry

Parched with thirst.

Her husband doesn't speak

These days.

He did smile when it had rained

For a moment,

And then cried

For some nights,

Turned quiet forever.

She sighs and looks

Towards the empty paddy fields.

The roof of her home

Leaks in the rains.

But she cares not.

If only the paddy grows

This year.

Or else?

There is no poetry in rain,

These days.

The woman told me,

"The rains were too little".

It will rain again

I smiled...

"Too late, may be!"

She sighed.

Poems are not written

Sitting by the window

Every time rain tickles

The sad face of earth.

Poems now lies silent,

And brown

Like the earth

After the rain has flirted

And gone back.

When the children

Try  to sleep,

Hungry.

And their eyes are wet

And shallow

Faces brown
Like pools of muddy water

On broken roads.

Poetry tosses and turns

In bed at nights.

It's verses

Are wet with sweat

Mixed with blood.

And lips are sealed

Forever.

(c) Ankur Srivastava