they are worlds apart but woven together,

they are worlds apart but woven together,

they arise together; they rest together; they sit together; they watch together,

betrothed, they now are,

but they are to be separated, as one half travels unexpectedly to soft hands; to tables; to backpacks; to cold foreign hands,

the other half tries to bridge the gap, the cracks now visible as it spreads its paper wings to force a smile; to hide the pain; to hide its tears,

one, from a land not too far, the other from beyond the distant oceans and mountains in a place not destined to be known. it speaks its mother tongue in pages filled with the fragrance of what were once ever-green fields adorned with wheat reflecting time now come and gone,

one tale many centuries old, the other born more recently in strife, where the heart was set alight by those it thought were its own...

but this tale does not end here...

they are worlds apart but woven together,

Ivan Turgenev’s Spring Torrent & Gopal Singh’s Politics of Sikh Homeland