Breath Poem by Saroj Padhi

Let me sit back, take the right posture
and try to breathe like the boughs inhaling Spring
without a lump in the nose,
and entreat the Sun a few rays to fling
on carcasses corrugated by Covid
and reveal the poverty of science
in healing mankind in throes of pain,
when cruelties on animals go on as before
by some humans gone so insane;

let me wait without joy in the bones
or laughter in the flesh,
without drops in eyes or feigned smile on face
to fill my cells with ecstasy of rain
at the end of a futile day
when phantom stars sing in night's tired vein
and the Moon overpowers the dark clouds
in her endless fight her real beauty to regain!

Let me sit down like a roadside Budha
without the mythical mirth in my marrow
to seek in the midst of din and smoke
a way out of all encircling sorrow
with my mask tucked in
and with a mind sanitized by a big zero!