And the earth shakes 

Waves take wing

People are reaped

And like Doomsday mother and son are blind to one another

What catastrophe has struck God’s earth

So that people shield their noses from the stench of flesh

Nature is playing a game 

People were fishing unaware

That in Nature’s game 

The fish will get their fill of them 

When the earth was swept from under the feet of the servants of God

The adults cried

O Lord 

O Bagwan

O Jesus… Buddha… Moses… Help

But the children and the mad didn’t know 

Whom in the heavens to ask for help

First they laughed at the tremors then died

They were blessed not to know

The sky was still blue

No one said a word

Their laughter lost in the noise of the waves 

But in the dark night

Women are still looking to the waves

For the lamp of any fisherman’s boat

There is no adhan in the mosques 

No bells are ringing in the mandirs

The church crosses are broken

People strangle one another for the charity bread of the rich

While babies

Suck blood from their dead mother’s breast

 

***

 

The earth is full of people 

Some burn in fire some in war

Some are swallowed by the earthquake under soil and water

And again humanity understands 

That death is the agony of widows and orphans 

Not those who perished 

The tragedy of death lives on 

Playing with the tears of the Indian and Bengali women

But the dead know none of this

 

***

 

A madman was sitting on a branch of the tree

The tree standing in the mud

Like a bird the madman survived 

He wept and laughed 

And said

War will still rage somewhere in this world

And some people will crave the blood of others

Here Nature helped them 

Nature wept

So that the warriors 

Might have their fill

And bring an end to war

The madman wept and laughed

The tree still stood

And like a bird he survived