A Cursed Blessing

• Somya Mehra, Grade 9
• Poetry
• 2012

Under the scrutiny of the night’s tsars,
Mother Nature serves her doleful duty
Of obscuring her savage, sordid scars
For naïve eyes to mistake as beauty

But beyond the illusory splendour,
Veiled by the inordinate distance,
They gaze knowingly, shrewdly; a slender
Yet unwavering spur of resistance

They refuse to bow down to the sheer vice
Which dapples the husk of humanity;
Refuse to pay the extortionate price,
Of the land’s flagrant, selfish vanity

Yet the fruits of their staunch tenacity
Are laced with the blight of mendacity