Ananya S. Guha- A Poem

Still Breathing

I  walked down the alley

the road pebbled spoke

'' you have been walking

down this lane for fifty years

what change do you notice?''

I paused, took deep breaths

walked on. The pebbles followed

'' change, do you see change,

are we the same ones, or have

we been replaced?''

I looked at the skies and said:

'' It is going to rain. After an earthquake

there is rain''. Pebbles and roads don't change.

They live like animals. We change. We fear.

And, if lucky we die. If not we live, and destroy

skies and the hills. And then I went home

took time out, washed, bathed, thought of

the encounters I had with the stones, the trees

and the hills. And when night comes they in nocturnal

slumber will debate how they have been hacked and hewed.

By stone cutters.

Still breathing.