Seventy Years Of Freedom

by Ananya S. Guha / August 27th, 2017

Mother, seventy
years of freedom
have shackled the
house that you made
with the British furniture
I steadfastly tie them
with a nation’s manacles
Even as the yellow house
grew, the nation shrunk
into cavernous hollows
of windswept children
sunken eyes
stained teeth
cadavers
a nation brought primordial
urge of death
now I swallow all symbols
of oppression, forget them
to be caught in the cross fire
of a nation’s freedom.
Seventy years is a long time
I passed only sixty in this nation
whirling into torrid seas
of seas bludgeoned with
blood, and grime
of people who do not understand
these seventy hears of slow, slow time.

Ananya S Guha lives in Shillong in North East India, where he was born and brought up. He has been writing and publishing his poetry for the last forty years. His poetry has been published in both electronic and print formats such as: Indian Literature, Other Voices, Osprey Journal, Glasgow Review, The Literary Nest, Up The Staircase, Asia Writes, Art Arena, Praxis Online, Muse India, Your One Phone Call, In Between Hangovers, The Peeking Cat Magazine, Post Colonial Text among others. He has also written widely on educational and social matters. He has ten collections of poetry and his poetry has been anthologized in various collections of Indian poetry in English. He holds a doctoral on the novels of William Golding. Read other articles by Ananya S..

This article was posted on Sunday, August 27th, 2017 at 8:02am and is filed under Poetry.