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Kindness

Lingering touch, quiet comfort, and shared smiles uphold a fragile, enduring world.

December 15, 2022

(i)
a silent lizard
flicks its tail,
patient companion
as I sit staring at the fan
whirring above the hospital bed.

(ii)
a monk
who sits alone
hugging an invisible soul,
a pod of a smile
bursts open his lips

(iii)
the last leaf
that clings on to the stalk
remembering those little arms
which had caressed it to life

(iv)
a word
which is left unsaid
so that the parting remains
anaesthetised

(v)
three legs and a cane
glide down the aisle:
she is blind, and he is lame
but together they paint
smiling faces

📖
PART OF A COLLECTION

Kindness and 1 other poem

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Nithya Mariam John

Nithya Mariam John is a poet, translator and teacher from Kerala. A few of her works are housed in Kendra Sahitya Akademi’s Indian Literature, Kerala Sahitya Akademi’s Malayalam Literature Survey, Borderless, SETU, International Journal of Fear Studies and Samyuktha Poetry. Poetry Soup, Reflections & Ruminations and Bleats and Roars are short collections of her scribblings. She is a lazy scribbler on Mizhi (nmjs.in) and tries to climb over her unending ignorance by reading.

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