The Moonless Sky Poem by Saroj Padhi

The moonless sky is breathless
with a bunch of overcast stars,
ragged and ruffled by dark monsoon clouds,
to fill the hungry caverns of our eyes
with light of an unknown hope
in a virus ravaged earth
wherefrom kins, friends and neighbours
vanish like meteorites from evening sky,
my brother's liver turns yellow
like the looks of village folk
trying lethal doses of black magic
for life's return to normalcy,
jackals cry pitifully
from forests and green paddy fields
to quell the dumbstruck girl raped
in my neighbourhood
in absence of her devout working mother,
life sinks like spills of rainwater into sands
lying unused for repair of my broken house,
I too drink starlight in dark night
for a crumb of hope to wake and rise!