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| Snigdha Agrawal |
Learning to stay standing
The cottages keep breathing
under layers of paint, crumbling
A wooden beam bows with the memory,
of hands that formerly shaped it
Even as glass window panes,
with distinctive distortions,
stays stuck on wooden frames,
clear, efficient, indifferent to age
The old staircase knows each footfall,
how weight hesitated before a step,
how time settled in the knee
It was built for pauses
Now elevators hum nearby,
on the street opposite
Impatient, smooth, forgetting the climb
Bricks listen
They have learned this skill
They listen to wires threaded through their ribs
Ornate lamp posts once hand-lit,
now glow on circuitry
Nothing is removed entirely
Only re-taught how to function
from within
An elderly window opens the same way
but the view has changed its language
Shadows move faster
The air is louder with ideas
To stay open, the hinge must learn
A new angle of trust
Life does something similar
It does not ask permission
before adding metal knee caps
The body becomes a heritage structure
preserved, admired, occasionally bypassed
While the world installs boom bars
and signs with smaller letters
Survival is not demolition
It is an adjustment
And so, the old remains,
not untouched, not erased, but altered.
***
Bio: Snigdha Agrawal was raised in a cosmopolitan environment. Both Eastern and Western cultural influences have shaped her writings. Educated at Loreto Institutions under the tutelage of Irish nuns, she developed a love for writing early in life.
A versatile writer, she explores a wide range of genres, including poetry, short stories, travelogues, and prose. She is the published author of five books, the latest being FRAGMENTS OF TIME, a collection of memoirs written in a clear, accessible style. The book is available worldwide on Amazon in all formats. She currently lives in Bangalore, India, where she continues to nurture her two lifelong passions: writing and travelling.
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