Something I Look At-426 Poem by Smruti Ranjan Mohanty

SOMETHING I LOOK AT-426
BY-SMRUTI RANJAN MOHANTY

I Have Never Seen You

I have neither seen you,
I have neither heard you,
Nor will I ever see you,
Nor will I ever hear you.
But I feel—every moment,
Every split second of that half-minute
You endured in that ill-fated plane.
I can sense how life feels
When death stands right in front—
How pathetic, how poignant,
To silently accept
That only a few seconds remain.

Death is not a tragedy—
It happens to everyone.
What makes it tragic is the timing,
The way it strikes
When we least expect it.
What separates cheer and tear,
Hope and despair—
Are but split seconds.
And that is life—
So cherished, so carefully constructed,
With plans, permutations, and dreams,
Yet fragile—like a water bubble.

When I think of it,
I feel breathless and choked.
It seems I am the one
Dying inside—
The one whose dreams are shattered,
Whose craving for reunion,
Hopes and tomorrows,
Were hanged before arrival.

It seems I am the one who has died,
The one who lost their family—
Their kids, their wives, their husbands, their lovers—
And I watched it all unfold
As a mute spectator.

It seems as if it is me
Who silently succumbed while doing my duty,
Unaware of what was happening.
It was a bolt from the blue—
And I surrendered without a fight.

Tell me, my Lord, where did I err?
Where did I go wrong?
Why this punishment—
Not just for me,
But for my whole family,
Who now must live the rest of their lives
Without truly living?

The identification is complete.
The horror has sunk in.
The incident—so raw, so real,
No one can help but feel
As if it happened to them.

A sense of loss grips us all.
No tear is enough,
No gesture, no RIP,
No word of solace
Can stop the wound from bleeding—
Until we, too,
Cross to the other side.

Smruti Ranjan Mohanty
India
13.6.2025
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