Apr 3, 2018 Original Poetry
Rain, Like Regret
©April 3rd, 2018
By Vijaya Sundaram
Rain came down like regret
When the world closed its eyes.
The dead lay broken in the dust
Supine, decaying in desert heat.
A flower bloomed somewhere
And died without pause.
A seabird, with its insides twisted
By something that wasn’t fish
Lay glassy-eyed on a sandy shore.
Trees, broken and bent, lay spent,
Littering lands ravaged by storms.
And still the makers of death
Ground away in their suits and ties
Full of blind purpose, free from conscience,
Working to erode the viscera of a world
That had taken so long to emerge,
Green and blue and flamboyant
From the abyss of dark time.
And those who fought for Right
Were trampled underfoot by those
Who clamored for Wrong,
As they toiled away in service
Of a god who knew no divinity.
And those who spoke Love and Truth
Were hurled back by hurricane-force
Gales of Hatred and Lies.
And those who stood for safety
Were gunned down by those
Who arose like a disease from
An underworld that expanded forever.
Knowledge crept away to corners,
Covering her eyes, and Ignorance
Strode about, loud and ugly.
If the world were a body,
Did it have a mind?
And where was its heart?
Its gut, its spirit?
If this world were *in* a body,
Hurtling through like a
Poorly digested meal,
Was it being flushed out?
Analogies don’t help,
Even when they do.
And I am sick to death
Of this world in which
I live and breathe.
But breathe I shall, and
Live I must, for even
Through the rot, the filth,
The horror and the hatred,
When the rain comes down
And the world’s eyes close,
I listen to the hum in which
I was cradled before I was born,
And hear the music of that
Which I cannot name.
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