Poetry in the face of calamity
Is it a humiliating mark of privileged distance?
Or a rampart against insanity?
Explain, why words live on,
safe within the collective memory
While blood is eagerly and frantically spilled
and its vessels are forgotten
Blood has seeped into the earth,
Dark, rich, and heavy
It has writ its memoirs deep within the soil
against its will.
Does blood not stain as well as ink?
The world has noticed, and it riots.
But in the clamor of marching feet
the blur of waving flags
and the thunder of anger and solidarity
I cannot help but feel that
We have put on an excellent show;
Our righteous outrage echoing,
Walking for miles, but not moving an inch.
Nesha Usmani
a foot on the threshold 