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These days I force myself to watch
each and every horror>
falling on you with an ugly precision
from the sky.>
I watch your farms burn,
your children die,>
your schools, tents, hospitals,>
memories, and love being blown apart.>
I force myself to listen to
the wails of men and women,>
the flutter of the dying light>
in the eyes of the survivors.>
I don’t squint when I see
them dig out mutilated bodies>
from the debris,>
or run with blood-soaked sacks
carrying dismembered people, still breathing.>
I raise the volume >
even when the bare-faced war-leaders
come on, justifying massacres, >
giving their sins a different name.>
>
It’s wedding season in my country now.>
So, yes, I watch with wide open eyes>
the grotesque colours>
of peethi, panetar, and kumkum>
fill my screen.>
No, I do not swipe up and select >
scenes, shades, songs….>
I watch until the glass screen>
that separates me from you cracks, >
until my silence is wounded,>
guilty and ashamed.>
>
But I refuse to write. >
I know the treachery of poetry>
the way it folds and unfolds truth>
between the layers of its textured fabric,>
the way its patterns excite and distract,>
the way it sings, paints, and embroiders>
my shame and your pain, >
the way it conjures up beauty >
from the most heinous spaces.>
Forgive me,>
for I shall not write>
about this barbaric time in poetry.>
Pratishtha Pandya is senior editor at the People’s Archive of Rural India (PARI).>