Rootlessness

Rootlessness… weightlessness…

as the winds of modernity separate me

from everything I defined myself in relation to.

 

Blood relations scattered too far apart

for memory to traverse

Devices occasionally carry words across

But devoid of feeling.

 

Belief riddled with holes

as it is forced through the sieve of rationality.

Gods are there on the pedestal, obscure

and in the heart a gnawing void.

 

This language that’s all lines and edges

feels like a virus that’s conquered the intellect,

and the one in which mother sang lullabies,

the pen has forgotten its curves

and the tongue is losing its cadence.

Remnants of a life

Ash and bones

That seem to reverberate

With the echo of cries of pain

Of the enfeebled body that’s no more

An empty bed

And clothes that smell familiar

Yet evokes dissonance 

A sense of loss of identity

That defined you in reference

To the deceased, and

A gnawing feeling of daily routines

Left in the lurch

Descendants, who now must wake up everyday

And confront the void anew

And learn to live with it

Rituals to assuage the guilt of the living

Of past neglect of the departed

Or to console loved ones

With the promise of peace in afterlife

A place beyond suffering