They come alive
where light enters not,
Where blight
blankets the deep undergrowth,
Where one has to
squat and squint,
To chance upon the
thought of a glimpse
The passage of
time is strange;
It makes the lucid
deranged
It renders
mechanical joints to creak and moan,
While the dearth
of it makes grown men groan
Audibly, yet the
mass of likeness offends no audiophile
On the contrary,
they are simply lined up in a pile
For the next
make-believe organ to come along,
Till the whole
forms a singular throng
And when you prop
them up in broad daylight,
It becomes clear
that they are not quite right
They are like us -
the illusion of skin and bone,
Two bulging
temples, housed by a skeletal dome
But they do not
feel like we do, they dare not
Let emotions out
to wander and trot
For emotions
unchecked tend to run riot,
Till deep dark
secrets are no longer private
They only emerge
in tandem with the shadow,
Always mindful to
avoid the evening glow
But if you ever
chance upon them in the dead of night,
I implore you to
chide your primal urge to take flight
Seek them, look
where the light enters not,
Where unrelenting
blight blankets the deep undergrowth.
Lalramengmawia
Khenglawt loves nature and draws inspiration
from hikes around the outskirts of Aizawl where he lives and works. He gave a
reading of this poem recently at a Poetry over Coffee programme organised by the
Department of English, Govt. Aizawl College, of which he is a proud alumnus.
