Seeking Consolation

It was a little too mundane, even plebeian

One could say

The cleaver’s hacking of the deadened joint

A commonplace enough event

In any roadside butcher’s shop.

One hardly smelt the blood spattered chopping block

One didn't even register the threadbare face he wore

As he struck with insensate swoops.

One barely noticed the entrails and the gizzard

Lying in clumped lumps – lesser meat for lesser folk.



I must hurry out in the clean sunshine

Dip my eyes in the burning glare

Soak it all in - down to the roots of my burning toes.



I will seek my consolation where the peepal leaves shudder

In the cloud-winds that whip the grasses of boulder strewn hills

That purple my horizon.


I will walk. I will watch. I will sometimes even talk. To myself.



And I will feel. Always feel. The need

That feeds like blind gastropods that worm up from the sodden earth.

The sodden earth where I lie buried. Hair, teeth and limbs.



I must hurry out in the clean sunshine

Dip my eyes in the burning glare

Soak it all in - down to the roots of my burning toes.


-by Rita Putatunda