Dawn

By Ravina Sewani

She asked me once what was dawn for me?

It’s funny how very less often we reflect on nature

In that fleeting moment, it hit me, I’d never known dawn upfront

A tap on my shoulder and she bring me back to reality

Presses me with the same question, how do you picture dawn?

For a second fleeting moment, I lose the sense of reality

My mind roams thinking which colours I’d use to picture it on a canvas

A splash of salty water on my face

Brings me back to the present again

(We’re at a beach, by the way; dawn here looks beautiful than in the city)

The present has a lifeless man picking up the beach garbage

While I take the third sip from my wine glass

The present has a widow trying to collect food scraps for her two-year-old son

Meanwhile, I gulp down the fourth sip of the wine

The present has a couple fighting over one of their exes

I laugh it off taking the fifth sip from my glass of wine

The present has a fragile lady trying to get through the day

While I shiver at the sight as I take my sixth sip off my wine glass

The present has a girl weeping over a grave for her lost one

And I shut my eyes as if to shut the reality door and take the seventh sip from my red wine glass

The present has two men dressed in sacred thread beating a man with a long beard aimlessly

And I brush it off as I quaff my eighth sip off my red-hot wine glass

(Is wine supposed to be hot??)

The present has a drained doctor after she couldn’t save a patient

While my ignorance smiles with the ninth sip down my throat

The present weighs me down with awareness that dawn for some

Is a set of hygienic gear amidst the garbage

Is getting a full one-time meal

Is a cuddle with the lover

Is letting life go in sleep

Is the liberation in memories

Is the end of communal hatred

Is a saved life

And dawn for some is yet another privileged glass of red wine

She pushes me hard, almost in irritation at my oblivion

When I answer her

Dawn for me is vivid each day

By Ravina Sewani