Aubergine in Penance

The ominous aubergine

Live life to finally die
For we’re all dust anyway
Look into my eyes, say why
I was born this very way

The purple poet has many names
Aubergine, brinjal, eggplant
In the night she summons flames
From the depths of hell and beyond

The gothic fruit stays true to her soul
By donning black, rejecting colour
The light of her candle brightens her old,
tepid eyes, only a shade duller
Than her leather tome full of cold
words so bleak they can’t dissuade her
From placing life on hold

To search for the meaning of a
Fruitful existence on the land
she holds very dear
Crumbling day by day, unplanned
The end is very near

Save me from the sky that darkens
The curse that befell earth
Stop the fume that blackens
Fossil fuels that caused this dearth

Of optimism, for those alive
And the fallen

Poem and Drawing by S. Rasa Rasika