Seven thousand a day stillborn

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Seven thousand a day stillborn worldwide

says the headline, forgetting seven thousand

a day mothers with voids in their wombs,

infected by slurs bursting like pus from hackneyed lips

of their own kin. Seven thousand a day mother-hoods

stillborn, destined to bear a viscous grief in their eyes

while their own flesh turns into a monument of mud.

Seven thousand a day fathers ushering doubt into doors

beyond which science and religion appear futile;

only an angry pain gnaws at the soul with stillborn

claws of memory. Seven thousand a day nearly-parents

resuming with a dreadful rancor, a bitterness unmitigated

by gossip, tv, cricket, a fury concealed within their breasts.

The countless aunts, uncles, cousins and neighbors keep

reminding them that pity has a tenor which like a rake

keeps scratching at the surface, while the worms of sorrow

penetrate the deeps within. Seven thousand a day questions

forsaken by an age-old habit of accepting a stillborn future

as fate. Seven thousand less is like an absent ripple

unnoticed by the ocean that sloshes and surges; the shells

and sand left in its wake become new ground for feet to sink in,

for hands to build fragile dream-houses, and forget

how each day, seven thousand disappear without a word

or a smile or a tear. Seven thousand a day stillborn souls

recalled to the base-station or wherever they come from.

While two-and-a-half million per year retreat without a syllable,

to have each one of us alive, day after day, isn't it, a miracle? 

**

Appeared first in Reading Hour, July-Aug 2012.