Breach of Innocence - The Road Kill -
By Seema Joglekar
One sunny noon, while chasing butterflies you & me,
Tried to unravel the mystery of the birds & the bees,
We stopped at some broken wings, lying on the ground, splattered,
Blackish red. To divert your attention I said,
“See! , There goes a butterfly in your favorite color,
Pink petals above your head hover.”
But you didn’t move & stood there
Watching, the first sight of destruction & its dark face.
Asked me where the bird went if it lay at your feet
Tattered like your ragged doll, with no tweet,
Its feathers spread, its face vacant, so still, awake.
You asked me, “If it still lay there within”
“Why it lay there so dirty, muddied.”
“Why doesn’t God clean it up? It’s a poor small bird.”
Questions I have searched answers for an entire life,
Your innocence springs open the Pandora’s Box.
In detail we inspect & see the ants have a galore,
You said, ” Kill the ants they are at the bird’’,
I said; “It doesn’t matter, now God has forgotten, ”
Puzzled you look at me, unsure, unsafe, and no longer protected.
Worried you ask me again –“Then where did it go? ”
I pointed to the skies & said –“It is with God- Up there! ’’!
You said looking up —“ I don’t see- where? ’’
I said—“God is there but prefers to remain anonymous”
Then you ask –“Then how would you know who he is? ”
“You say he could be anywhere, here –there, ”
I said –“Yes, he is here, I see him in you—your sweet smile”
Again you give me that quizzical look
And with tender hands my arm you took.
We let it be & went ahead instead,
Me in my daily pursuits, you withheld
By the wonders of childhood. Our separate ways,
It’s been three summers now,
Even today when unwell you scream-“A feather in my bed! ”
And again the same question stands,
And stares at me-bold, daring, emphatic! .
Tried to unravel the mystery of the birds & the bees,
We stopped at some broken wings, lying on the ground, splattered,
Blackish red. To divert your attention I said,
“See! , There goes a butterfly in your favorite color,
Pink petals above your head hover.”
But you didn’t move & stood there
Watching, the first sight of destruction & its dark face.
Asked me where the bird went if it lay at your feet
Tattered like your ragged doll, with no tweet,
Its feathers spread, its face vacant, so still, awake.
You asked me, “If it still lay there within”
“Why it lay there so dirty, muddied.”
“Why doesn’t God clean it up? It’s a poor small bird.”
Questions I have searched answers for an entire life,
Your innocence springs open the Pandora’s Box.
In detail we inspect & see the ants have a galore,
You said, ” Kill the ants they are at the bird’’,
I said; “It doesn’t matter, now God has forgotten, ”
Puzzled you look at me, unsure, unsafe, and no longer protected.
Worried you ask me again –“Then where did it go? ”
I pointed to the skies & said –“It is with God- Up there! ’’!
You said looking up —“ I don’t see- where? ’’
I said—“God is there but prefers to remain anonymous”
Then you ask –“Then how would you know who he is? ”
“You say he could be anywhere, here –there, ”
I said –“Yes, he is here, I see him in you—your sweet smile”
Again you give me that quizzical look
And with tender hands my arm you took.
We let it be & went ahead instead,
Me in my daily pursuits, you withheld
By the wonders of childhood. Our separate ways,
It’s been three summers now,
Even today when unwell you scream-“A feather in my bed! ”
And again the same question stands,
And stares at me-bold, daring, emphatic! .
The theme statement in my narrative is that once innocence is lost, its lost forever, this I've shown through multiple details: The first detail I've shown through this narrative was how I reflected on the stupidity of my assumptions of Ripley's Haunted Attraction, the second detail I've shown through this narrative that demonstrated the theme was my symbol: The kitten climbing up the tree and getting stuck up there and needing outside intervention to get it down, which parallels with my situation with Ripley's Haunted Attraction where I enter it of my own free will, but getting down traumatized (At least, for 4 years) me. Near the end of my narrative is where I imply how innocence is lost forever with the description of how even though my experiences at Ripley's Haunted Attraction was over by then, my face still showed how I was terrified.
In Breach of Innocence - The Road Kill - Seema Jogelkar is that innocence can be broken unexpectedly and once broken, its broken forever. We can see this through how in the second line of the poem, the narrator describes of how they're playing and then they suddenly just encounter a dead bird, introducing the narrator's sibling[1] to the harshness of death. The poem also goes on where the narrator makes claim that essentially says "God has abandoned us" to the narrator. Though the narrator's sibling uncertainly denies that. The end of the poem shows that the event affected he narrator's sibling more than they originally let on with the line "Even today when unwell you scream- "A feather in my bed!" .
1: Or maybe close friend, the poem is ambiguous to the narrator's relationship to this person, though the 3rd to last line gives the implication of this person to be a sibling.
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