Early sunlight fell on their faces
When the storm came
And plucked the villagers,
One by one.
It took all the time it needed.
***
The one who wasn't plucked
Stood and cried for their mates.
They were plucked too.
They twirled in the sky happily,
Next to the birds.
***
Although, they couldn't
Grasp the other's hand
All of them were together-
connected.
Even the cows and goats flew
***
And the shreds of their sheds
And the shreds of their master's sheds.
They cried with joy
Their voices were lost in the howling storm
***
The storm was there for hours
Some say, for an entire day.
But it had to stop, and so it did.
First, its howling got dim.
Then the first villager fell on earth.
***
She got some serious injuries.
Then the cows and goats
And the shreds of sheds
And other villagers fell down.
The gravity of the storm ate itself up.
***
It vanished,
And everything was on the ground.
Even the birds before they fluttered away.
All of them got injuries,
Some minor, some major.
***
They struggled and got up.
To maintain the togetherness, no one spoke.
It was very silent.
All of them looked around.
There were no homes-
Only crumbs of what was there.
***
Over time, the villagers built houses
And sheds.
They waited in silence for another storm to come.
But then, one day, a goat bleated
***
And soon cows began to moo.
The villagers tried to wait silently
For a little longer.
But then, they started to talk too.
Over time they forgot the storm that came.
***
Sometimes at night,
A villager or two remember
Their grandfather's story about the storm
They wonder if it's true
And go to sleep.
-the poeter
