Stillness

Is a city even alive if nothing moves?

The long horn of the trains that rush south,
The flights dropping their wheels to land home,
The blaring honking rowdy roads--
All comatose,
almost lifeless,
no murmur, no breath.

Stillness.

The street lights burn, and the crows caw sleeplessly,
The racketing parakeets scream past free,
A lonely kite surveys its next meal;

Yet,
Stillness.

There are whispers, there is a mild laughter,
But the fear hangs in the air like a colloidal dream--
How small is a strand of RNA?

So small that we cannot imagine till we see.

Stillness.

This now is too long to bear,
Is there a moratorium on life?
Can we wake up day after and find the world as it was?

Nagaram,
A city is that which moves.
And when it ceases to be,
We are all dead, even if a bit alive.

All those soles burnt on the dug up roads,
Now I am a prisoner, self-constrained.
The hours flow into one another,
Tomorrow is still part of the same dream.