Imprints of time

(For Stan Swamy)

You are merely an echo now
For they have killed you
strangulated your throat
so that you could not sing
the songs of sweetness
the melodies you kept clandestinely
clutch them, because they were
your precious treasures.

Even now as protests of your charade
continue, animals are lynched and
little children die on the streets
and those  sandalwood slippers
Imprint desert slopes of time and
History.

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..