Whom Should I Blame?

 

What we do and what we don’t,--

Maybe it is our choice,

Or maybe the hands of providence

guide or misguide?

Don’t know

whether it is our action’s rejoice,

or partisan fate’s prejudice?

Stealthily we try to ensure

the credit for the good falls in our own bag,

And if things go wrong

our stage-manages throng

to put all blame on the old hag.

 

Whatever we may think of ourselves,

We’re, but, the good- or bad-chanced kids

of the parental—earthly and other worldly—topsy-turvies,

If not so,

What person is there to wish

directly his doom;

Which life’s light voluntarily seeks

to be extinguished to gloom?

Still—less directly and more indirectly—many

against their will are brought to the wrong end,

Where the expected destination

does not exist not even in name;

Where the undoing sweeper chuckles in all its fame,

And the half-willed animal

gets tethered to a peg for a chained tame,

Then follows the great game,

Many try to put each other to blame.

 

It is but a futile mockery,

Mere verbosity cannot bust

the secret of that trickery.

 

Ever-lorn to justify ourselves,

Many-a-time we put the blame

squarely on the destiny’s elves,

saving just digestible morsels for ourselves,

And feed mammoth dose of

unwanted garbage to the uncomplaining lady.

 

What does it matter

if the blame lies with us

or it is borne by the

speeding wheel’s crush,

The loss, after all, is a loss,

Whoever is the causing boss.

 

To me, either both of us go scot free,

Or both are put under the accuser’s glee!