Malabika Ray Choudhury | + Follow Poet |
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Never Reached Home

They are walking! Walking, walking, walking! 

Long stretches of walk - hundreds of miles of impossible uncertainty,
in blazing sun, in sweltering, muggy, heat - running away from an Inferno. 
Home, sweet home! Villages with shady trees! 
Destination! 

Thirst, hunger, bleeding. 
They trudge, fatigued babies hanging on their shoulders like sandbags, 
starving infants clutching hands, tears dry on their cheeks. 
Men and women - walk, walk, walk!
Leave cities where cruelty is the only language,
Villages with shady trees - 
Home, sweet home, far away. 

Burning sun, sweating bodies, dry throat, growling tummies. 
Slog beside railroads - follow tracks,
no trains, no buses, no trucks, no vehicles,
only two weary feet to carry them to their destination,
plodding with all their might until the body can not move a step further.

Lie on the tracks - it’s hard, it’s cold, it’s comforting! 
Come rest, come sleep, come death - 
Blood-stained tracks- 
Destination never came.

Copyright © Malabika Ray Choudhury | Year Posted 2020

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Jennifer Fenn Date: 3/26/2021 9:10:00 PM This made me so sad for these poor people. It’s great that you can use your talent for poetry to to bring their plight to light. That’s one of the callings of poets, isn’t it? Keep doing that. Login to Reply Malabika Ray Choudhury Date: 3/27/2021 7:25:00 PM Thank you, Jennifer, for visiting my poems, and commenting. Yes, you are very right - that's for sure one of the callings of poets. Wish my pen were more powerful! BW ~ Mala

Ann Peck Date: 3/26/2021 2:04:00 PM This particularly touched my heart because of the immigrants walking from South America to the USA: so tired, so hungry and turned away. Login to Reply Malabika Ray Choudhury Date: 3/27/2021 7:23:00 PM Thank you, Ann. Really appreciate your kind words. Yes, these experiences are unbelievable, but real. BW ~ Mala

Kimberly Sikorski Date: 2/20/2021 6:41:00 AM Oh Mala I walked with you, as you walked beside me carrying me through your experience. I cry with you Kim Login to Reply Malabika Ray Choudhury Date: 2/21/2021 6:18:00 AM Thank you, Kim, for visiting this poem. This is a true incident - happened in India during the first lockdown in 2020. Although I am very very far away, I couldn't help crying - this is a special poem to me.

JCB Brul Date: 5/16/2020 5:09:00 PM This is a masterpiece! While reading I could see vividly and feel deeply the plight of such people...so heart-piercing! I salute this poet for such a poem full of HEART! To my faves... Login to Reply Malabika Ray Choudhury Date: 5/16/2020 7:10:00 PM Thank you, Dear Poet, for such a thoughtful comment. Only poets with compassionate, sensitive hearts are able to feel the extent of a trauma like this! Thanks again for including in your favourite list. Best wishes, always!

Andrea Dietrich Date: 5/15/2020 9:39:00 PM OMG, this is so heart-wrenching. They actually all lay down on the tracks and died? It makes me feel so small when I think how I complain about things SO insignificant compared to this kind of tragic life. FAVE for me. Login to Reply Malabika Ray Choudhury Date: 5/16/2020 7:00:00 AM Thanks, Andrea, for reading my poem, and leaving such a thoughtful and compassionate comment. Yes, it is a true, recent, tragic, heart-breaking incident - hard for us even to imagine this life! I couldn't rest after I came to know from far, and until I wrote this poem. Best wishes.