‘Who are these people / who keep coming / to kill peace?’: Poems of hunger, war in an age of excess

Each Footprint is a Hope

When a child walks barefoot
each footprint is a map of a land.

​When children fall in front of bullets​
and their bodies are dragged on –
each dragging trail is a hope.

Their eyes show us
the black back of every mirror
the cold grasp of ruins.

Their laughter rings like vacuum
travelling through the bullet holes
in the walls of their houses.

Their footprints leave
a vast desolate ache in their wake
as water forms
inside growing coconuts
by their houses.

The houses – roofless –
look at the sky
the way a quiet shore
looks at the sea
seeking a way to rest.

Today a Missile Struck the Head of Buddha

God – their names echo in spaces
where tanks traverse ​playgrounds.

The world moves and the hands of clocks move farther apart.
Palms folded over our hearts we sit inside roofless houses.
We still think about preserving our faith.

What when a missile topples the dome of a mosque?
when it rips apart the clapper of a temple bell from its mouth?

Today a missile is stuck in the head of Buddha.
Where will the birds sit now?

Today the rice bowls are filled with bullet shells.
How would you teach hunger to value our gods?

The Day When Dissent Spread

The streets stretched pale,
sunlight barely brushing their edges.

Within the walls
wicks waited to cradle the fire

that bore enough memories to spread.

Something About Us

When we die, death means nothing to us
but it matters to those who are tied to us.

After every summer the rains will still return.
Spiders will keep spinning webs
around our door frames.
The mirror in our rooms which watched us
getting dressed every day
will still reflect the comb
we left in front of it.

When the sky touches the earth with rain
some people will talk about us during the storm,
and some after it.

The words we leave in the air
will keep returning like flashes of lighting
unless there is too much water below.

What Do You Think?

Can you tell the difference
between a dead friend and a dead stranger
by looking at their faces?

Faces don’t share stories. People do.
Perhaps the dead have similar beliefs about life.

After all, with more deaths added to today’s calendar,
what difference does one drop of hand-hot blood
make to the redness of your glass of wine?

How do you master this art
of knowing and not knowing?

The Difference

If you are hungry
a handful of rice and curry
is the greatest relief.

But who are these people
who keep coming
to kill peace?

The hungry don’t fight.
They keep pleading and crying out
for a handful of rice.

But they who come
to beat us with sticks
eat well every day.

Excerpted with permission from Clamour for a Handful of Rice, Sonnet Mondal, Copper Coin Publishing.