Lessons in endurance for the broken

Battered boulders check fury of the river. Alter
the passage of
the currents. Create calm pools in turbulence.

Rocks refuse displacement from wet perches.
Granite
monks, stock-still, steady. Meditate, half-submerged,
in the flow. Undisturbed
by the raging waters.

When the river thins out in the long, dusty summers,
rural kids walk
on the strong craggy backs, to cross for other side,
with
heavy school-bags, dreaming of wings, birds, clear sky.

Constant pounding. Friction, surface-tension leave deep lines.
Slow strangulation by the cold fingers of snow and ice. Erosion.
Chipping. Hammering. Yet, they do not break easy. Sculpted
by stone, wind, water.
Stacked in Zen gardens maintained by Corporates in the heart of
banking district.

Their tough exteriors contain within sediments of the muted sobs of
the lost forests,
rivers and summarily-dismissed young employees, on manic Monday.

Sunil Sharma is an academic, critic, literary editor and author with 29 published books: Eight collections of poetry; five of short fiction; two novels; a critical study of the novel, and, 10 joint anthologies on prose, poetry and criticism, and, two joint poetry collection and one joint fiction collection. Recipient of the UK-based Destiny Poets’ Inaugural Poet of the Year award in 2012. Winner, among others, of the Panorama Golden Globe Award-2023, and, Nissim Award for Excellence (2022) for the novel Minotaur. His poems were published in the UN project Happiness, The Delight-Tree: An Anthology of Contemporary International Poetry, (2015). Read other articles by Sunil, or visit Sunil's website.