The Wind Poem by Madathil Rajendran Nair

The wind blew
cold across meditating mounts
of the Western Ghats
as I walked streets
of human infestation
in a rain-shadow
where men and women labored
chasing their unceasing dreams

I had begun my walk
much before sunset.
Lo, now the stars have begun
to shimmer auguring a night of rest

What rest there can be
on the street where I am?
The wind wafted over fried
delicacies - somewhere fish,
somewhere meat and somewhere
just non-veg balderdash
for unsteady men inebriate.
Who understands the pain
of the beings that perish
on uncaring frying pans?

A mom just passed by,
her face lined with concern;
perhaps, her daughter hasn't returned
from school, who can understand her pain,
an anguish that called out to the skies
which those on the frying pans wailed

A female dog fully pregnant
labored across the street,
her heavy mammary glands
said the pain she bore;
she was shooed away everywhere
without remorse.
Who has time for mothers
In a rain-shadow that had no time for tears?

The wind, dispassionate, would blow all night
across filth and waste
and over plants that yearn to smile
with fresh flowers on the morrow

Wind is a wind
east or west
that augurs change.
Let us sing for the winds of change
blowing amid brooding mounts
where smiling moms, shimmering stars abound,
where pain and pangs don't dare to hound,
where female dogs have their glands unwound,
a paradise truly unbound
like a sonnet so profound