Walking Along The Sidewalk Poem by POET SHUMUKH

in my long, dim mantle
With a forest of steel netting
tight as a second skin
in the blue of known struggle
the walnut glow
keeps searching—
not for escape,
but for something to soften the blades

to the passersby
I am a swiss landscape,
snow-still, distant—
a painted calm
caught between darker tides

yet my scent,
tugging at their senses,
testing the thin wire of my nerves
they do not see the trembling—
only the surface they can borrow peace from,
unaware of the agitation beneath
and still, they linger,
ready to trade their quiet
for a moment of mine

perhaps for want,
perhaps for habit—

and a few,
for art