by Ann Ardra Antony
I’m the ground.
I bear all that is on top of me to keep them safe.
My parents eroded away one day.
Their parts scattered everywhere.
And now I’m all that’s left.
One day the storm came to visit the mountains.
The storm scares me.
“It pulls unsuspecting spectators into it,making them lost and eroding them away.” ,
My cousin once said
I wanted to run away
But I remembered mother saying
“The trees will protect you.”
So I stayed put
But the trees swayed and swayed in the wind,
Falling at last and leaving me defenceless.
I forgot that moment the weight I bore
And the lives I protect
The storm raged harder
I could no longer see anything
It seems I was lost
I broke under the pressure
Giving way under me
As that which I sought to protect
Died under my own body
At that exact moment i saw something
I felt sad and determined all at once
I gave away my fear willingly to the storm
And weathered through
Keeping that one part of me I wanted to keep safe at all cost
And After what seemed a gruelling eternity
The storm left
A light pierced through the dark clouds
Touching me who was shivering from the cold and broken beyond repair
But broken somehow did not mean not whole
It meant something else entirely
I smiled, at the sun peeking out naughtily.
And back at the tiny sapling I had given my all to protect
She was leaning towards the sun now
With her little hands spread out
She was cowering no longer
Afraid to come out
And looking at her struggle to reach the sun
My grin stretched wide
Eroding the years of pain
And I realised —
The storm was not quite what I had imagined.
It was something else entirely.
