Untrodden by your feet
Who knows which city’s street was I?
All eyes were on me
But I was an alien to them all
They would ease their pain at dusk
I was a river afloat in the town of grief
You were a moment that didn’t pass
I was a century transpired
I wandered with my home atop
Alas! How innocent a migrant I was!
POONAM ARORA
Those who had on their back the
burden of injured memories,
scattered habitation
And of exiled faces
Their names are lost amidst cries
Like the last leaf fallen off a tree
Their crime being unbeknownst
to them
They lose that part of being human
That reconstructs the grammar of their language.
KEDAR MISHRA
I do not know what country
or city this is
Or what slum or colony
A brick kiln or a factory
My dwelling is always by someone else’s mercy
Within my blood flows the soil raw
Coaltar melts my bones
I’m the road laid for your cars
I’m the field for your games
I’m the multiplex that
appeals to you
I’m also the haplessness of your shredded plastic
I’m the illusory image of
your gain and greed.
NILIM KUMAR
I shall never turn back
Lo, and behold!
My body now emits neither the smell of my country deserted,
Nor that of its soil and wind
Lo, my body’s smell began to change
I can now never turn back
Farewell, farewell the borders of
my country
The wind of my motherland
It’s flora and fauna
My country’s water and rain
I can now never turn back
Lo, and behold!
I’m standing in an unknown desert,
A desert whose name is not known to me
My back bears the seal of whips
My country by and by is turning into that desert
Which I’ve fled from.
This unknown desert has embraced me
Farewell, farewell, farewell...
Now I shall behold merely the sun and the moon,
Which through your country
Comes to the uncertain country of mine.
(All the poems have been translated from Urdu and Hindi by M A Rahmani)
This series explores the most pressing environmental issues through the prism of literature
These poems were originally published in the May 16-31, 2025 print edition of Down To Earth