EPFL – Page 2 – Borderless

Letter

LETTER The postman has passed by my house. The news is out, and joy is in the air. The letter is from my beloved mother Who lives on the other side of the globe. People, curious, wait outside my house, Waiting for me to unveil the letter’s content. Winged with cheer, I run around the house, Ecstatic to have a letter from my mother. Age seems to have overtaken my mother, She cannot travel nimbly so far by a flight. Rain is unsubdued and the wind crackles, Yet people wait to know how she is. Loving bonds are what connect us at heart. Trees have lost most of their golden leaves. Autumnal wind makes me think of heaven. Words afloat tell me she lives no more.

History in the Making

By Pramod Rastogi

Clio, Muse of History, Painting by
Artemisia Gentileschi (1593 – 1656). Courtesy: Creative Commons

History has a long past, shrouded
In layers of the mist of Time,
Most of which is unseen in a museum. 
History has a future vast as an ocean.

Of times whose tides are frontline,
We are in the middle of the flow
Between a past catching up on us
And a future we are catching up to.  

We must dig deep in the gaping ruins 
To perceive all that remains cloaked 
In the halls of maligned controversies, 
In tune with ruling elites of the times.  

Painted dark might be the white,
And painted white might be the black,
This is how history is entrenched
And has seen snowflakes fall in the Sahara.

The past is in the jaws of the present
Which is incessant in its slither
Into the jaws of a future, rather nebulous, 
To drag it into the past sliding behind.

A lava of tears flows down the cheeks  
Of history as we wield its resolute truth 
Until it remains a shadow of itself.
It sheds one last tear and sails on.

Pramod Rastogi is an Emeritus Professor at the EPFL, Switzerland. He is a poet, academician, researcher, author of nine scientific books, and a former Editor-in-chief (1999-2019) of the international scientific journal, Optics and Lasers in Engineering. He has published over ninety poems in international literary journals.

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