The Verbose Silence

By Suman Kumar

My eyes see

But I am Deaf,

I rise up early-

When the day-break is long due

And street-lights in my dank alley

Flicker in silence, hopelessly,

Then, day after day

I see this Bird

Perched on this old branch

Attached to this ghost of a tree,

It opens its beaks

Just as the Rays yawn in unison—

A couple only –

And I see the bird Sing,

“Damn, that must be beautiful to hear!”

I wonder to myself,

And I picture that bird

Living in that hole up in the wall

In my lightless room,

I remember of the time

When I used to sing like that,

Me and the bird-

We understood each other

Back when we were Home!

How it dispelled the darkness!

How it made me smile!

They light a bonfire

And sit around it in a circle

And talk and laugh,

The warmth of the fire eludes only me,

The Fire, It talks mildly, slowly;

Translating the gay chatter going around, for me,

And for me, it flaps its fiery tongues almost gently-

It wants me to be a part of the company

As if talking slow

Would make me less deaf,

And then the fire crackles

Just to give voice to my quietude,

Seeing itself fail miserably.

How I long for only the whispers-

If not the thundering voices,

To trickle down my ears?

And though the waters here

Would not drench me

In their fresh embrace,

Though they would not wash away

The stale soliloquy off of me-

Would it kill the frequent downpours here

To touch my loud, unheard loneliness-

Make it only a bit un-alone?

Thank God!

There are still some things--

Those that don’t require the tongue,

For, my smiles are heeded still,

And we talk only through our eyes-

The whole stories transpire before me, through me

It would’ve been a real tragedy

If I wasn’t allowed those two lines

In this wide-stretched tale.

By Suman Kumar