Early Spring, a poem by Abhinav Aradhi

 

Early Spring, a poem by Abhinav Aradhi

There’s a feeling in the cemetery air,

Like a billion flowers blooming at once,

A spectacle that would light the world up

In an exhibition of joy previously thought impossible.

 

And all down the street,

The houses have their eyes wide open,

Because they’ve been exposed to a cruel truth.

They now live with blissful insomnia.

 

The sun has stitched

The mouth of the moon shut,

So it can no longer laugh at humanity’s flaws,

Because who can really say they’re flawless?

 

And what kind of nuclear family falls apart?

Could it be that sanctity, much like a rusty bolt

Holding together a rollercoaster spanning skyhigh,

Is not an efficient glue?

 

Is it possible that the traditions aren’t right?

That we live by a set of rules so ironclad

That they weld our hands with their harsh retaliation

If we do not fall in line.

 

When did we become slave to our ancestors,

And what they thought was morally acceptable?

If a tradition is a mainstay, then surely morality

Must be passed on throughout the ages, no?

 

Yet it has evolved,

Blossomed, into a formidable plant,

One with gorgeous, multicolored petals

That spans over cities like a great looming cloud.

 

And all the little children
Grow up to shift the world a little further in the right direction,

Like little seeds planted in a post-apocalyptic wasteland,

Only to turn the whole world lush and green.

 

If, for every Janice,

For every Brother and Sister,

And for every dastardly Father, there is joy,

Then why would we need to look to the past?

 

There’s little daisies,

Growing up out of the cracks of graves,

And they seem to wave hello

To the flowers left by visitors.

 

They’ll grow up to be the prettiest little things,

And they’ll grow up to make the world a little more beautiful,

And then they’ll bring on the next batch,

Like the spin of a ceiling fan.

 

C'est la vie, tradition.

We’re breaking our rose-tinted glasses on your headstone.