Sukrita Paul Kumar [Kenya / India]

 

Lives Unlived
 
1.
The little girl in the school
was grappling with a math equation
hai Allah, prayed she
I’d rather die than be put to shame
in front of the whole class
not giving the right answer
 
A million questions gushed forth
when the bomb exploded
over her head blasting
all right answers
 
2.
The sharp pain in the shoulder
did not hold the mother from lifting
the heavy iron to get the creases of her
uniform in place
 
with the sudden explosion
the girl’s hands at once reached out to the creases
to save her mother the labour for the next day
 
blown to smithereens by the blast
she ended up saving her the labour forever
 
 
Cycle of Ruptures
 
Through the crumbling
orthodoxy of thought and
feelings unfreezed
they made love in the cusp
between life and death
 
A ball of throbbing nerves
tumbled out of
biological chaos
Igniting memories of
the birth of motherhood
 
The child an assurance of continuity
strands of knowledge
etched in collective memory
                        of multiple pasts
the child wiser than all humanity
 
Wisdom lies still and silent
till language infiltrates into the baby brain
rubs the mind clean
                        and installs the software
to learn all over again
 
 
First Love

that which remains most
is what leaves us
 
not lingering
nor rushing
or breathing down the neck
 
it’s there
to touch
to smell
to taste;
 
rock-like
remaining in the privacy
of silence
uncomplaining

Author’s Bionote:
 
*Sukrita Paul Kumar (born in  Nairobi, Kenya) is a  poet, critic, and academic. She has published several collections of poems, translations and critical books; her most recent collections of poems are “Yellow”, “Salt & Pepper” and “Vanishing Words”. An invited poet at the International Writing Programme (Iowa, USA) and a poet-in-residence in Hong Kong, she is a former Fellow of IIAS, Shimla. She retired as Aruna Asaf Ali Chair, University of Delhi. Currently, guest editor of “Indian Literature” and co-editor of  “Writer in Context” series of books published by Routledge UK, she was awarded the Rabindranath Tagore Award for Literature 2023. She lives in Delhi. India.