Let'skeep The Music On Poem by rita malhotra

today as I sit to pen silence
unity of humankind
stretches its arms
across maps bereft of dots
resonance of virtual synergy,
congruent thoughts, parallel dreams
remain dressed in their formal best

promulgation, communication
in bondage of social media
videos, messages, be-safe calls
from within stark quarantine-walls
from sanitized sites of solitude

in vagrant steps that lose their way
the broom-holding, wrinkled man
hums his love as he beholds
the moist eyes of an age-bent wife
scrubbing the kitchen floor

mask on the city's face
thoughts circle broken mirrors
yet that infinitesimal spark of hope
keeps the music on

the worry-swathed overseas son
makes promise-laden concerned calls
he shall soon join the homeward birds
to return with a thousand hugs
let's keep the music on

an uncanny outside in uneasy calm
the inside in deep meditative trance
for distant daughters, for the loving kin
uncertainty roams the streets

through water-rapids, past forest-shades
hope nestled in green embrace
wings its way to Earth's door
proclaiming with a smile:
a radiant spring will smile afresh
the rare orchid will bloom again
herons will fly the sky in flocks
adorned in soft golden gossamer,
the gentle breeze would sing once more

who says
melodies are extinct?