An Unwritten Poem  

-         Manprasad Subba

You ask me to write a poem for you

when all the words are dissociated from one another

and each of them has gone into isolation

Not a line takes form and I am utterly out of wit

The words that busily walked along the streets and lanes,

the words that commuted in buses and trains,

buzzed in and around the markets and shopping malls,

sometimes took to the streets in protests,

have now gone quietly into their dungeons

The words that sweated for their daily wages

the words that the parks and beaches teemed with

the words I was one with since time immemorial

are today quarantined in their individual cages

Now, how can I string lines with those words

That would convey my intimate feelings?

At this age of intricate interdependence

these poor words have been cruelly separated,

not like the islands that are constantly caressed by the hands

of murmuring sea-waves from the other shores

But these words are rendered lonely islands

with voids in between them

and light-years away from each other

utterly deprived of warm touch

How can a poem be born in such a lifeless void?

The Facebook wall invites, too, to write something

when each of the words is mercilessly exiled in distant isolation

In fact, I want to write poem

not only in the language you and I understand

but also in Chinese, Italian, Persian,

Spanish, German, French and many others…

But wherever I turn to I see the words quarantined

with lower half of their faces hidden in masks

So, my Love,

please, accept this blank sheet of paper

and feel upon it the heartbeat of a poem left unwritten

Or, stare with your eyes closed

at the blank screen of my Facebook wall

which is but the dark blank space

left by those poor departed souls

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[Dedicated to those who succumbed to Covid-19 and also to those suffering from the same dreaded pandemic]