The Poem
Ensconced in the here and now,
when the world is advancing
by leaps and bounds,
and when I saw me as riding on the crest
in league with the power of womankind,
some strange gust of wind
blew over with an image from the past
which shattered me to the ground.
Not so remote in the stride of time,
in the history of my ancestral memory,
the memory of our colonial past,
A picture of an aging woman
bearing on her back
a powerful,sturdy sack,
which probably she was given to use
for the tea leaves culled from the hillsides,
working in the plantation of some colonial sahib.
With her back bent but not broken yet,
she carried in that sack the noble savage,
flashing the lights of his civilization
in the sunhat he wore like a crown
and his pointed shoes polished by some native hands,
the shoes with which he kicked perhaps
on a daily basis
the souls who worked on subsistence wages;
and Malthus and Ricardo trumpeted their theories in cold blood
of how the world is ruled and run on well oiled cogs
of a giant wheel of colonial power.
 

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• 
  Latif Z

  Thanks so much my dear friend !
  Great respect for you and for your culture
  You are great poet and wonderful Lady
  My english is so bad
  I can good speak only arabic and french language !!!
  JUST one word my dear : you must that you are near to me and you have great place in my heart !!!
  Best regards ✌

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  Mar 9, 2016

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• 
  Sushama Karnik

  Glad to be your friend Latif. Don't worry about the English language. It is the universal link among people all over the world.The British rule in India was a mixed legacy and one good thing they left behind for us was this language and with the language we have an access to the world. I can see that you are fluent in French and Arabic but I have no knowledge of these two languages. However, we can communicate well in spite of the  language barrier. Indeed , it is a small world now.
  +Latif Z 

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  Mar 9, 2016

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  Latif Z+1

  +Sushama Karnik Happy and smiling day 😊 my dear

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  Mar 10, 2016

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 Persistent rains sing in my ears.

An invocation, an invitation,

to break the bounds and swing.'

The morning when the walls of home are dark. 

The window snaps open and lets the breeze in.

Solitary bird shrieks , an unusual note cuts through .

My heart strains to hear its aching song. My day begins.

It's searching for you ravenously hungry., steadfast

in its belief that you're somewhere near,

else the bird wouldn't sing

so forlorn in the middle of a summer for  for a rain. The humming of a distant waterfall

so near, so far away; it's holding the harp still in its hands,

The night ends; the day breaks. Far beyond the hills someone dwells ; calls my name   ,

the name given to me alone before the beginning of time.

From the immersive oceans of forgetfulness

with a stunning clarity a tiding comes

 running on the crest of a wave.

 O drifting cloud, break your rigid rules. Dissolve, melt your wings  

and like a warm steam arising out of the kettle; .stream in into my home.

.Immerse and stay for all the times of the year..

And sometimes as you watched the sea
the waves hurtled and crashed.
A thrill pulsated in the air around
and a cool shower of a salty jet,
a watery sky fell on the rock
Life has brought you back to the sea.
Like a lover who understands
the meaning of desire
you look at the sea
with a new adoration,
a magnanimity of forgiveness
and the generosity of forgetting,
you find again all that you need--
in the sea who never forgets

Sushama Karnik.