Sometimes I open the window and the dusk rain touches my face,
a lightness on the edges of knowing
that when this frozen summer fails, children locked
without knowledge of tomorrow’s light
will leap as the sun breaks, molten through their corridors,
night fleeing rapidly from their eyes –
while mothers and fathers hurtling with the hurricane will struggle
to stand still, struggle to let go the darkness.
But some, biding time under the sun, watching the world
turn, will make no bid to run –
a sudden glory etching in their eyes, a vast unspoken territory
easing inside their hearts,
free from the labyrinthine servitudes of death, free at last
to sing, to conquer the dungeon silence.
To stand unwavering and unshaken till this darkness catches light.
Anu Majumdar writes poetry, fiction, YA, non-fiction and was a choreographer. She has been researching Auroville, the experimental city, where she lives. ‘Beyond the Night’ is a series of poems Majumdar has been writing on since 2017. A few of the poem have been published in The Punch Magazine and the Indian Cultural Forum. They are written to leave marks of light in the darkness we travel, a tunnel to carry us to the other side.