Home » cho 17.3 | Dec. 2021 Table of Contents » Pravat Kumar Padhy, A War in Silence

Pravat Kumar Padhy

A War in Silence

Twas such a manner of disease, twas such
 Mortal miasma in Cecropian lands
 Whilom reduced the plains to dead men’s bones,
 Unpeopled the highways, drained of citizens
 The Athenian town.

– Lucretius Carus, The Plague of Athens

 
Time takes all to a different domain. Layers of silence are deposited like the snow falling over snow again.

she extends
her wish for a kiss
the voice
of breaths fading
into the ventilator

The News . . . Screams of Covid chaos simply climb up the sky and mingle with the storm blowing all around. Everyone embraces distance and talks behind the mask, missing the light of freshness even under the bright sunshine. The clones of the villain wait in hiding; men fight with pale faces and hands armed with mere soap bubbles.

 window filters
the aroma of flowers
how subtly
a tender money plant
chases for the brightness

Note: Epigraph from The Plague of Athens by Lucretius Carus (Roman poet and philosopher), translation by William Ellery Leonard.


About the Author


Pravat Kumar Padhy’s poetry has been featured in many journals and anthologies. His seventh collection of verse is The Speaking Stone.

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