Spring in Smaller Things

by Sehajpreet Kaur Lakhyan

No one talk about

what survives.

They talk about numbers.

statistics, headlines, crossings,

camps, crisis.

But not the little things.

Not the little girl,

who still insists her sun

be yellow.

Not the boy,

who keeps a pebble

from a street

he may never see again.

Not the mother,

who remembers every ingredient

without ever writing it down.

Not the father,

who laughs too loudly

just so his children

forget the sound of fear.

No one talks about

how human beings

can lose almost everything,

and still somehow

keep the softest parts

of themselves.

And maybe this is spring.

Not petals.

Not gardens.

Not warmer days.

Just a home

that starts sounding lived in again.