A storm gathers fast on the
distant horizon, dim but visible. Murky skies and bloated
gray clouds mesh into terrific beauty—and rumble of thunder that
cleaves the day-gloom with a dazzling
light and deafens. The earth
shudders uneasily. Trees sway
violently, birds are in flight, circling.
The powerful wind flattens the solid
things on its way, in fury. The burning
fires leap up hungrily for more in the plains ahead; the ground cannot
hold the dead anymore. The cold whispers of the
spectral armies merge seamlessly with the cries of
the living—condemned by the indifferent system, thus producing a collective dirge of epic proportion.
The storm gathers speed, become
fiercer… but the Council blind. The castle-keepers cannot
hear or see the approaching tempest, busy counting cynically, amid the gaping ruins that were once
happy cities!
Sunil Sharma is a Mumbai-based senior academic, critic, literary editor and author with 22 published books: Seven collections of poetry; three of short fiction; one novel; a critical study of the novel, and, nine joint anthologies on prose, poetry and criticism, and, one joint poetry collection. He is a recipient of the UK-based Destiny Poets’ inaugural Poet of the Year award—2012. His poems were published in the prestigious UN project: Happiness: The Delight-Tree: An Anthology of Contemporary International Poetry, in the year 2015.
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