Surviving This Crisis

by Ananya S. Guha / September 21st, 2025

I walked ways of yesterday
The stones were torn, wished
The blood was normal
Today tears weigh heavily on the mind
Because a war shredded world
Is tormentor;
Playing fields are graves,
Schools are prisons
Flood gates open: 1971, the Indo Pak war
So near home, the birth of Bangladesh
Accompanied by songs of Beatles
Romanticism was alive in a war
When India was ten years old I was born
Now, sixty eight
I am witness to archipelagos of blood
Every man is an island, I am impervious
To death and dying, in university, the subject
Of a debate was:” The fourth world war will
be fought with stones” , now it is children
Who clutch the stones protectively , and cry
Out loud, sob, holding their parents’ hands
At sixty eight I hold the cross, light candles
To burn houses.
I will turn to asceticism, looking for kindred
Souls…once alive, now decimated.

Will poetry survive this crisis?

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, September 21st, 2025 at 8:00am and is filed under Poetry.