When

Numbers. They were used to quantify.

10 deaths, 50 deaths, 116 deaths. Now they all mean the same.

They all mean nothing.

Numbers. When did they lose their ability to quantify?

Peace. It used to be the status quo.

Rockets, Missiles, Rebels, Terrorists. Now they define the norm.

The day is now incomplete without a tempest wrecking peace.

Peace. When did we let go of it?

Sympathy and Empathy. They led the world to help to heal the hurt.

Mutilation, Rape, Explosions, Child Soldiers. The wounds only get deeper and deeper.

There is no medicine available to blanket the festering pain.

Sympathy and Empathy. When did they decide that we were too damaged to heal?

Love. It used to make the world go around.

Indifference, Ignorance, Hatred. Now the world has stopped in a cold cavern.

The wheels have stopped moving and the quicksand of desolation is sinking fast.

Love. When did we lose the audacity to revel in it?

~Rishika Sudhir Dhody

There is a Land

There is a land, in the realm of imagination;

A land, where the rainbow shines through at every smile,

and snow trembles from the clouds at every frown.

There is a land, in the realm of imagination;

it is beautiful and it is invisible,

it is real and it is surreal.

There is a land, in the realm of imagination;

The air that pervades is there is happiness,

sometimes insignificantly still -

and sometimes swingingly strong.

There is a land, in the realm of imagination;

it is beautiful and it is invisible,

it is real and it is surreal.

There is a land, in the realm of imagination;

Where flows the stream of morose-ness,

the stream which can push afloat - and pull inwards.

There is a land, in the realm of imagination;

it is beautiful and it is invisible,

it is real and it is surreal.

There is a land, in the realm of imagination;

Where the demons and angels fight,

and where the war and peace reside, side by side.

There is a land in the realm of imagination;

it is a fantasy and a sliver of reality,

it is but vapor and it is the home of the mind,

there is a land in the realm of imagination.

An Ode to the Sea

I stand at the seashore,

as my feet sink in the sand,

being tickled by the lapping water;

I stand in wonderment,

How can one thing be everything and nothing?

I breathe in the salty air,

which announces the sea’s presence from far away;

and I wonder, how can one thing be both, salty and refreshing?

I gaze at the stillness beyond the waves,

and as a I remember the tales of mermaids,

I wonder how one thing can be so still and yet be filled with life?

As the waves play with my feet,

I look across at all the rocks, which have been marked by the sea;

I wonder how one thing can be both endearing and scary?

I stand at the sea shore,

as my feet sink in the sand,

being tickled by the lapping water;

I close my eyes

and feel the wind pass me by,

at once, ferocious and playful;

and feel the sound of the sea

resonate with my being.

Engulfed in the wonderment,

I feel the stillness of time amongst all the motion;

I realize that even time stops

to pay homage to the sea,

The Sea, which is everything and nothing.

~Rishika Sudhir Dhody