Void

A poem by Pragati Verma

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Introduction

The poem presents a modern wasteland: from the high viewpoint, human life appears futile and illusory—people struggle like dying fish, mask their inner death with false joy, and circle like scavengers awaiting their own end. The speaker, haunted by guilt over their mother’s suffering love (“She loved me against my prejudice”), sees this same emptiness in themselves and contemplates escape.

Yet the message is not pure nihilism. The mother’s love stands as the poem’s redemptive idea: unconditional, enduring despite the speaker’s “storm.” It suggests that love persists even in a world of self-slaughter and false facades. The final choice—vulture (endless anxious striving) vs. dead leaf (surrender)—mirrors Eliot’s tension between control and release. The redemptive angle is that true peace is possible, but only through acceptance: of life’s impermanence, of our own brokenness, of the limits of force that we can ever exert. To “free fall” is to trust something beyond the self—nature, fate, God or the memory of maternal grace—and thereby escape the daily strife not by annihilation or destroying oneself, but by alignment with a larger, quieter and mightier order of nature and the universe.

These are the lines: 

***

Void

On the edge of a towering edifice,

My first thought was that of Mom:

She loved me against my prejudice.

It was tough for her as I was a storm.

Those tiny people who look like fish out of water,

From above here, they are nothing but survivors,

Who somehow survive self-slaughter,

As they fight for life with desperate fervour.

Those laughing faces full of plight

I see at weddings and birthday parties;

They resemble the cadavers at night,

And hide under a thin, false layer of happy realities.

Birds above the brooding sky, prowl

Haunting me terribly as they can;

Strips my bones bare with their curving tool,

From heights where none can see their span.

To untangle this pesky rumination,

I must withdraw from this dreary life.

To embrace a bleak resignation,

And finally escape this daily strife.

Should I spread my wings like these vultures,

Or just free fall like a dead leaf?

And ignore all the future’s torture,

To welcome the calming gentle relief.

                                                                                    —Pragati Verma

 ***

Paraphrase

One day while standing on the top a tall building, the first thought that came to my mind was about my mother. She loved me with my vices and limitations and I admit I was very difficult for her. When I saw minute people down the street, they appeared to me as struggling for life like fish without water. They somehow survive in life’s hardship as they fight a battle that would eventually lead to ‘self-slaughter’. It is a battle which is going to take their life, sooner or later.

Soon, a similar thought came to my mind about those happy faces in weddings and birthday parties. They appear to me like corpse with smile on their face to facade their cold, dead existence. When I saw above, I saw birds that appear like scavengers who hover above my head with their haunting flight to savour my flesh and bare my bones.

And then a concluding thought enters my heart: if I want to escape this gloomy world and its pathetic affairs, I must withdraw from this dull existence and resign from this Web of daily struggles.

So, shall I continue the vultures’ anxious struggle for survival, forever chasing security? Or shall I release myself like the dead leaf, trusting the wind’s unseen direction and nature’s quiet design? This falling—this letting go—may be the lesson my mother embodied in her patient love: to cease fighting what cannot be forced, to accept the world’s brokenness, and thereby find a fragile, present peace. Like the thunder’s promise in the wasteland, redemption lies not in victory over the void, but in the courage to fall into it without resistance.

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Conclusion

This poem, like The Waste Land, refuses easy consolation. The speaker confronts a world drained of meaning, where survival is predatory and joy is a lie. Yet the mother’s love introduces a counter-current: a memory of unconditional acceptance that survives the speaker’s own self-judgment. The closing image of the dead leaf falling freely transforms potential suicide into a spiritual act of surrender. Redemption here is modest—Eliot’s “Shantih,” not resurrection—but real: peace arrives when we stop warring against what is, and allow ourselves to be carried. The poem ultimately asks whether we can learn to fall with grace rather than fight until we break.

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About the Author

Pragati Verma finds solace and expression by spreading her thoughts on a sheet of paper. She is currently pursuing a Master of Arts in English at Vinoba Bhave University, Hazaribag, Jharkhand, India. She is a published author of a number of short stories and poems in Hindi and English.

Her writing journey is driven by a desire to explore the world with emotion, complemented by her love for art, nature, and literature. She hopes to contribute to the universal aim of creating a world of justice and peace by shedding light through stories that inspire love and compassion for all.

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