the cruelest month

#APoetAtHeart

Eliot was wrong, you know
August, not April , is the cruelest month
if it rains, it floods
and nothing remains behind
as the furious waters carry away
lives and things and dreams.

if the Gods disappoint, farmers hang from the
bare branches of forlorn trees
leaving behind wives and children who look
as if carved in stone
they do not even blame destiny

in torn tarpaulin covers , grains rot or become
rodent feasts while distended bellies
beg for a single wholesome meal
and die or live lives worse than death.

road repairs come to a halt, and house painting jobs
are put on hold , even polishing of dull sofas
in chandelier lit rooms gets postponed
so the breadwinner stops at the theka, and returns home
to beat up the frail wife.

knee deep storm water enters the lowlands
of the slumlords and so does sewage
the tarpaulin roofs leak, and he says, let the rains
pass, I promise you repairs and recompense.

August is particularly depressing for me
it is the month of my father's birthday
whom I lost twenty years ago, at sixty.

I don't know whose sorrow is greater

I do know Eliot was wrong
perhaps he wrote in a different century
in a different country
for a different reader
but if it be so
why do we read Eliot at all
(priya)