Sufferance

By Ravi Ranganathan

Can you conjure a famished day of summer

With farmers looking aghast at the skies

Or read despair in that villager’s cursed murmur

When he spots a dry sun with his roving eyes?

Are you strong enough to console his mind

As he grimaces, glancing gloomily at his parched field

Can you puff life into this arid land unkind

That once prospered with a bountiful yield

Are you strong enough to pump a speck of spring 

Into the dried up autumn of his stunted hopes

Or tie his dreams with a silvery string

And stir his battered, bruised soul with sugary sops.

Can you ever paint the clouds black to whet his wishful reverie

Or extract sap from the roots of his endless penury?...

By Ravi Ranganathan