Rain Ruined Poem by Saroj Padhi

Half-ruined we stand under clouds of distress
raining into our roofless huts of melting, mud walls
where fragrance of flowers is lost to the stench
of decaying desires and filth around,
each home is an island with its own tale of tragedy
yet in face of crises, together we face the misery-
Jagu's expecting wife we carried in a bamboo stretcher
to the hospital before reaching which
she had an awful delivery;
a few died under the debris of houses that fell
as their kin languish
not knowing how and where to have the funeral;
water-snakes terrorize us like foes at border
fishes leap out of our gaunt hands and torn nets
as we boil under a harsh sun with rising pangs of hunger,
the moon of beauty has gone out of our lives it seems
plunging us into a deep dark of unrelieved fear;
and now that a few drops are shaken off the dark clouds
we know not where to go for the night's shelter
when the old owl hoots from the grove to console us
in this dreadful night of death-in-life under liquid terror.