​The Deluge of Humanity

Till yesterday our world was different;

We couldn’t see boats on roads,

Nor could we find bodies floating like infernos.

Our houses were aloft,

And the city looked bright and yellow.

Subways and highways we vaunted of,

Hotels and flats we bragged about.

But a flicker of a night

Snatched from us everything we had.

Leaving us with poor life

Begging for tiny drops of mercy.

The water swallowed our homes,

Our roads and flats,

Our food and clothes

And our pride as such.

Our houses started stinking of sewage

That crept in from the sewers outside our gates

Engulfing all that we were left of.

Until the day a roof became a sight so scarce

And food a luxury.

Our arms pleaded for help

And our souls drank the pity of the deluge.

Darkness became a habit,

And the tired voices of lament became feeble and feeble

Till we could hear no more.

No arc of Noah appeared before us,

Deserted we remained;

And abandoned we are,

That now, we have learnt

To dance to the tunes of the neck-deep water,

Sing with the clouds

And find joy in every ripple.

Borders and lines,

We’ve long forgotten,

For the water taught us that

Our lamenting voices

And our cries of hunger

Seem no different from each others’.

That we live human,

And die human;

Human and not more,

Is what the deluge made us understand.

So, when you would say

That nature’s fury destroyed everything

Our voices of protest will reverberate

With greater vigour and valour

Than yours.

For with the deluge, nature has sown the seeds,

Of a better and more equal world.

This and no more.

Jasmin Naur Hafiz (jasminnaur@gmail.com) is a Class 11 humanities student based in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala and blogs at jasminnaur.blogspot.in.