It is not Kung-Flu. It is Covid-19.

• 

It is not Kung-Flu. It is Covid-19.

What we need:

is compassion, not pity,
solidarity, not sympathy,
solace, not platitudes,
empathy, not charity,
understanding, not apathy,
tenderness, not blame,
gentleness, not promises,
truth, not obfuscation,
science, not false narratives,
vaccines, not doomsday soothsayers,
medicine, not conspiracy theorising,
oxygen, not hot air,
inclusion, not omission,
togetherness, not cocoons,
humility, not hubris,

kindness, not othering.

What we need is simple:

the humaneness of human beings
embracing our shared humanity.

What we need is simple:

as the South African philosophy of uBuntu espouses:

“I am because we are”.

IT IS NOT “KUNG-FLU”.

IT IS COVID-19.

And what we need,
are all of us,
each other.

us all,
to lend a hand,
when any of us stumble,
when any of us fall.

• 

Delhi. A Funeral Pyre.

• 

Delhi. A Funeral Pyre.

by her child with no name.

And as I sit here today, these countless waves away,

my Delhi, into whose mad, warm, gritty, welcoming arms I fell on that early autumn day,

is welcoming no more.

And as I sit here today with relief, that from her I am so far torn apart,

my Delhi, whose diyas of light that once lit up my heart,

is a funeral pyre.

And as I sit here today, just another child of hers with no name,

I breathe,
I can breathe.

And even as my mother chokes, the stench of relief that I feel,

of being from her so very far,
this vagabond child of hers with no name,

breathes with relief,

to his eternal, asphyxiating shame.

• 

life now …

life now …

clutching, grasping,
holding onto,
gulping down, hungrily,
each breath, every breath,
fearing the onset of the years,
the splinters of time,
embedding,
piercing,
this moment, the very now,
numbed by repetition,
embalmed by trepidation,
of tomorrows yet to dawn,
suspiciously sifting through the strands of greying hair,
seeking clues,
the because to the whys,
the slow mornings,
restless nights,
jabbing reminders,
as years, decades,
scurry, scamper,
flee,
feeling it all slipping away,
standing, immobile,
stilled by the implacable sentinels at the doorstep,
these immovable sentries,
concealing the door,
that leads to today …