Deaths in Orissa

Faces of tree-bark and grief hang against God's hand in the world that cannot lift itself up to help. In the corners of women's eyes the rainbow breaks against the sunrise. Nothing but the paddy's twisted throat exposed on the crippled bleak earth, nothing but impotence in lowered eyes, nothing but the tightening of the muscles in Bhagyabati's neck which her outcaste mother would herself have liked to throttle to death, nothing but the cries of shriveled women cracking against the bloodied altar of Man, nothing but the moment of fear when they need a God who can do them some good. Oh I am a poet who barks like a dog. Open the window, I say, so I can breathe. Let not my memory be like a tiger in ambush. But there is this dangerously alive body and only a baton or knife can tear it apart.