Pallid
rays of this pale moon
had grown
old so soon
during
that half hour before the morning twilight,
It was a
chilly, clear-skied, frosty, fogless January night,
The moon
just a night away from fullness
had been
exceptionally bright.
Nightlong,
almost near the acme of its beauty
it had
fulfilled its luminous duty,
Its milky
beams had over-lighted
or
overshadowed many a star,
It seemed
eager to blot out
every
stain and tainting tar,
Its beams
falling like snows
upon
sleeping horizon to the far,
The
beautiful plains of this countryside
were lying
in sleepy abundance
under the
milky, chilly blanket with slumberous pride,
Everything
was open to this celestial torch
with
nothing to hide,
Cold-basking
fields were huddled under their croppy sheets;
above was
gloating the marvelous moon-shine,
Wheatlings
stood bow-headed in reverence
with dewy
crown fine,
Those
marigold flowers were shining
unabashed
under the milky showers,
The
flowers happy about
losing their
colors to the lover’s
mysterious
smiles and its powers,
White pea
flowers boasted their augmented whiteness,
Aha, such
dolefully beneficent had been the brightness,
Even trees
didn’t seem dark, indistinct specters
lurking
shadowy over the horizon,
They
appeared boats of foliage
floating
in a misty sea,
In the
background of such a brightly lit stage
even the
sky seemed earth-lorn,
Through
the milky transparency
its
bluish-black veil lurked and through it
only the
brightest stars smiled,
Scattered
in the docile swathes of this
moon-baked
countryside
villages
seemed like mammoth ships silently
floating
in the white wavy sea of light.
The moon
was now well past its prime,
as if in
shining too bright it had committed a crime,
Its
setting quarter was in the north-west,
where the
moony panorama had shone at its best,
And now it
was moving towards rest,
Its
strength and vigor had
dangerously
plummeted down,
It now
seemed ogling with a
meek,
angry, anguished, helpless frown,
Its
brightness was rapidly fading out
And its
yellowish pale rays
appeared
eager for a wailing shout,
Glumly it
was fading over that sandy undulation
carrying
fields, furrows, crops on its gently unfolding dome,
Shiny
fruits born of sweat-laden efforts in its sandy loam,
Accusingly
the moon threw pale, protesting
shadows in
south-east,
where
urbanism, consumption and crass commercialist
blatantly
had its seat commanding, metropolitan, capitalist feast,
The area
had been earmarked
for some
merciless development project,
It now
being defined by a tiny space
bound in a
map issued under
the state
government’s gazette notification,
What a
mischief by the developmental hand!
Ever eager
to bulldoze over the nature
and turn
it into uncomplaining, lifeless sand,
where
lustrous stones will be built over the nature’s burial,
Oofs! How
heartless, wanton and depraved!
This pale,
mournful moon
which was
to set soon
into the
misty gloom of twilight,
when a
bright sun of consumerism and commerce
was
ascending to its dawning height,
Those
stalks of reeds
which sway
in the cold breeze without greeds
seemed
gently bidding the moon a good-bye,
Plummeted
which further down
with a
swollen face and a sigh,
Its pallid
face grimacing with a painful nostalgia,
Its
fading, setting rays tainted with deadly paleness;
Its oblong,
teary face
now looked
at this landscape,
Sleepy
fields, warmthful wastes and fallow lands,
What
mighty lessons have been taught here!
Aha! The
farmer going to the fields with his gear,
Those
long, painful, sometimes fruitless days
subsided
when the sun’s eager rays
looking at
the sweat’s trove
and the
shirt’s hoe,
Where the
long painful dark nights
arrived
like the deeds accomplished,
Where the
failures galore
but the
hard work never bored,
These
failures defined success
as the
losses stood just as a testimony to the profits,
Where
hopes, aspirations and desires
varied
with the changing hues of weather,
Farmer
pawning everything
for the
feathers in destiny’s crown,
Gold forms
immaterially—
or
minimally at the rate of a dust speck for a gram—
in the toiled
soil brown,
All will
be gone,
The moon
was also dying with a moan,
This
beautiful charming mystery of the landscape—
why
hardest labour fetches minimal returns;
and why a
bit less harder toil results in
a
soul-satisfying speckful of return that seems wealthiest—
All this
beautiful, aesthetic, curvy, circuiting strings;
Mysteries
of landscape, of destiny,
of the
see-saw battle between pleasure and pain,
between
penury and sustainable as well as gluttonous gain,
between
life and death:
All this
will be lost for a direct, straight,
materially
penetrating needle of surety,--
The
commercial, unflinching and fixed
use of the
landscape
in the
form of concrete approach
where
profits will boomerang
in
proportion to the short-cuts;
Where
compromised morality, ideology and conscience
will not
face any ifs and buts;
Where
there will not be any sweet scent
of labour
that will be replaced by
the
mechanical, greasy, muddy panting
of
merciless competition and grab;
Where
concrete blocks, flats will replace
these
wonderous solitudes basking in and around;
Where
sheaves, stalks, straw and reeds
will not
sway to the breeze,
but blank,
rigid, ironed tower
will stand
mutely, inflexibly to the nature’s cooing calls.
Now the
sorrowfully yellowing
death
rattle of the setting time
was
arriving with a chime.
There on
the opposite horizon the day opened a window
to sneak a
peek at the imperiled room of the night,
Wispily,
there was the twilight
with its
mixed day-night delight,
In its
mysterious lap,
the old
moon met a slightly premature death,
Slumped as
it feebly, freely
into the
silvery sea of mist
standing
still over the treeline.
Into this
sea of death, the moon plunged,
And the
twilight mischievously winked
with it
unfaithful, teasing look asking favours
both from
the night and the day,
The old
moon was gone with its last ray,
And
soon-to-be-doomed panorama,
unmindful
of the fatality waiting,
came out
of its dewy slumber,
A crane’s
clarion call
cree….ked
over its yawning breast,
The sun
prepared to cast its first ray
and the fields
got up for another hard farming day.
PS—Time of
the poem: Half hour before the morning twilight of January 13, 2006 (Lohri); a
day before the full moon day (Makar Sakranti, January 14).
