Tephra, 2019, 1943
Posted: August 31, 2023 Filed under: Poem, Poetry | Tags: Genrational Hunger Vs Modern Opulence, Gratitude to the Ancestors, Great-grandmother, Poverty and Struggle Vs Comfort of Modern Times, The Bengal Famine of 1943, The Generational Curse Leave a commentA pebble hits and smashes
my morning mirror.
Now I am cold as a stone,
stand so remote,
before the household’s
four-oven fire
peering at the glow, imagining —
what a strange block of coal
my great-grandmother poked
out from the belly of the earth
in forty-three’s summer.
Instead of being dour,
she carried the flaming charcoal home
to cook for her boys
burnt taro roots.
(The poem was first published in the May 2023 issue of Poetry India: https://www.ethosliterary.org/poetry-india/may-2023-issue/poems-by-arun-paria)