What are words worth?

if nothing else, poetry captures the moment and stretches it in a way that can be held, felt and wound around oneself... recollections from a morning walk: Nothingness (22-12-06) The bird outlines a black shadow on a still colourless cloudless blue sky; A wing flutters ever so slightly as it swims across my upward view. The tree stump waits in patience, hope and a certain sense of fatalism (or fatality?) for a new twig to burst into leaf. There's a quiet in the crisp crunch of footfall on gravel. Heads nod hands rise in a hello; Morning walkers polite alone breathing in and out and feet move on another mile.

I read the other day about a rally organised in New Delhi to protest female foeticide and call attention to the deteriorating male:female ratio, particularly in the states of northern India. Just reminded me of something I wrote a long time ago...in fact, much before I became a mother, perhaps in response to a similar discussion in the eighties, perhaps recalled from 'the depths of neo-natal' memory...? But I must say that memory and imagination are partners in a writer's mind, and empathy often makes curious turns into the space usually occupied by experience, and in doing so, touches memory with a brush that recalls feelings unfelt! A daughter is born 17-3-86 Dredged up From the depths of neo-natal experience A memory stirs. While head and hands groped for life In the womb-darkness Of pre-birth, Tiny feet found Their first breath In the bright hospital air. A little body Inched out into The adult world, defined By adult-set hopes. Before even, The baby eyes saw Their firs