By Malkeet Kaur
The world is becoming tinier,
The walls closing in.
The stuffy rooms seem overcrowded with two, three or four
And outside lies a vast faceless digital cosmos.
The air is brimming with unknown, minuscule monsters
Ready to pounce on the sense of Kleenex security of within.
I count the shadows on the closed window panes
I can see from my window,
The mind struggling with imagination
Playing one thousand one stories of Arabian nights.
The ordinary family drama behind
Those glass curtains seems so inane.
I peep at the empty streets
Through iron bars like a caged bird.
Yesterday there were some stray dogs,
Flinching away from the unfamiliar masks over familiar smells.
Today the road lies silent, unmoving, waiting.
And then I see that blue butterfly again.
It was there yesterday
And before that,
Hovering over blossom less tree nearby.
Maybe we will survive the monsters this year-
The crowd in the rooms.
Maybe the spring is in the air.
Malkeet Kaur resides in Mumbai, India and works as a teacher. She loves writing poems and many of her poems have got published in the online journals.
This poem perfectly evokes the mix of claustrophia and hope so many of us are feeling…if we can only get through the winter!