Mitali laments the countless deaths, grief and losses during the pandemic. It’s a dirge, exclusively for Different Truths.

The combined grief of men
matters — the combined pain.
 
I mourn, mourn the loss of
uncles, aunts, parents,
friends. I mourn, mourn
the loss, the passing of an
 
 age that is gone — gone is
an era, an eon, an epoch
of respite in their smiles.
Those are lost.
 
I miss the love, the heart,
the kindness, the gentle touch,
the voice that said you matter.
You are loved. All that is gone.
 
I had thought I was strong.
I could take death in my stride
and move on. But I find the
 
cracks growing, growing into
wide rifts that distance from
Others. I find being loving kills.
 
In pursuit of the strength to love
amidst this chaos of death,
in this unloving, disrespectful
hate-filled, venomous wait,
 
I sing to the sadness of fate.
I sing to the strength of love
that gives without expecting
a return. I sing my dirge.

Visual by Different Truths

Mitali Chakravarty

Mitali Chakravarty is a citizen of the world. She writes and edits with the hope of creating an equitable Earth that transcends artificial barriers created by manmade institutions. In that spirit, she runs an online journal called Borderless. She has been widely anthologised and published. Her life revolves as a mother and wife around her two sons and husband.