The fog always lifts

Depiya Thoudam
At the crack of dawn
Multiple times the rooster crows
Shouldn’t it be a lazy dawn?
A lingering season, oh winter!
The window by her reading desk
Opens to a foggy and misty morning view
Even her neighbours’ garden
Is not in the sight
But she knows the fog always lifts
Messy hair bun and warm sweater
Chilled breath and cracked lips
Nothing less of a typical winter day
Rekindling the old ‘Meiphu’
That she inherited from her Grandma
She perched on her old comfy chair
Back of her old ink pen
Rested gently on her lower lips
As she stares sightlessly
To a foggy and misty morning view
Even her neighbours’ garden
Is not in the sight
But she knows the fog always lifts
The steam curling out from her hot coffee
Dances through the icy cold air of winter
On the blank sheets of her poem book
Her fingers whisper to her old ink pen
Another untold story of the heart
She penned a poem again
Another poem she would never recite
Beneath the blanket of words
Hidden are her true feelings
A tacit understanding it is
Only Between her and her poems.