Once Upon a Glass Artefact

April 25, 2024

It was a usual day,
Morning brought the cuckoo call
And your temple broke itself

For a while, it made me think
How far you had walked for this thing
How many hours it took you to bring this home
To you, to me, to us
And then I reminded myself it was glass, just
Fragile, weakened, cracked glass
The tiny flower vase placed inside could hardly fit a feather
And time takes a toll on all things
All things take to rust and weather
It’s alright! Things happen for the better,
So I didn’t even try to mend it
I gathered the broken pieces instead
Resisting the sharp edges, dreading the deep cuts
I swept aside all pieces to a blind corner
I let it fade into common dust.

For a while I escaped it’s wanton care
The empty space was filled by another pair
Only it wasn’t glass ;
Wood seemed a better fit.
Dry dead wood carved out of a dead tree
Nothing could break it, dead as it was already
After a week it freshly doomed upon me,
How wood doesn’t shine, doesn’t catch light
How dry, sore and monotone remained it’s cover
It slowly doomed upon me how I missed the reflection of that glass:
The play of lights, the edges that cut sharp
The trill in its layers, the sound of a harp
All tethered into one
By now it seemed,
I had taken to artificial artefacts
Shiny, broken and undone.

Suman Rawat

Suman Rawat is an aspiring academician and writer . She completed her Bachelor's and Master's degrees in English Literature from the University of Calcutta and is pursuing her B.Ed from Loreto College, University of Calcutta. She is keen on reading poetry, letters, and epistolary narratives across literature.

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