"I look back to see
if I had left behind trails
of my voice, as if that mattered more
than if they had reached."
I stay in Calcutta, and wherever I walk I know I do so on hallowed ground, unseen but still fallow with the blood of revolutionaries. It’s another matter that whilst some of it was a fight for freedom, some of it was misguided, for things which revolutionaries themselves lost sight of. The fight was for a cause - but often for the fi...
"I look back to see
if I had left behind trails
of my voice, as if that mattered more
than if they had reached."
I stay in Calcutta, and wherever I walk I know I do so on hallowed ground, unseen but still fallow with the blood of revolutionaries. It’s another matter that whilst some of it was a fight for freedom, some of it was misguided, for things which revolutionaries themselves lost sight of. The fight was for a cause - but often for the fight itself. But, foolish or brave, nobody could doubt the valour or the intensity.
At the beginning of this year, I looked back with some despair at my fraught world, and I looked forward with some trepidation. And what emerged in me was a memoir of times I had trudged through, as also a strange memorial for things still to come.
But I had promised myself something a long time back - on that quibble called hope. Friends told me that hope was a fool’s lifeboat, riddled with holes, forgone to disaster. But I had always held that it still floated, and to mix metaphors, it was still sweeter than the acid of cynicism, which corroded even as it breathed.
But what the despair made me do was to doubt my voice, question it’s potency, ask about its reachability. What it made me do is to question if everybody’s pain needed to be seen with the same heart, if one wound needed to be tended and another ignored.
What would this world do to my soul?
And that’s where I want myself and this world to again seek innocence. To trust, to have faith, to laugh, to love - and maybe get destroyed in the process, but at least live what is left of life in the high castle of hope.
It’s a beguiling wish from a fool. But there are too many stories of fools who have been destroyed but whose mere idea has made us live with love, dignity and passion.
A life lived with this is no mean success, however curtailed it might be.
If you liked this poem, consider listening to these other poems on identity and hope:
- Yes
- And I Know These of You
- Difficult Child
Follow me on Instagram at @sunilgivesup.
Get in touch with me on uncutpoetrynow@gmail.com
Subscribe to my incandescent and poetic newsletter The Uncuts here - https://theuncuts.substack.com.
The details of the music used in this episode are as follows -
Music: Stormpath by Alexander Nakarada
Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/9816-stormpath
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
