The Winter Sunset in our Fields

 

The night is taking birth,

Sunset is imminent thus,

Over the fields cropped,

And silvery mist upcoming,

With the silent majesty of

the sunbeams gently smiling still.

 

The day, like a minimalist,

Looks sunward to get

yellowish orange traces last,

The sundown moment!

Mingling day and night,

With the sunbeams garlanding,

Which one? Day or night?

Guava, blackberry, mango,

Wild not, but tamed in the orchards,

Stand silent and still,

Their natural character somewhat lost,

Which they laugh away

for some purpose human,

They with the brethren wild

along the canal embankments,

Stand as spectators for the great handover.

 

Wheat saplings turned plantlets now;

Few inches tall and strong,

To go into the dark

without crying; no fear.

 

The cawing of a raven,

And a parrot’s cherishing tone,

All speak of a day gone,

Distant howl of an owl

from a lone banyan big,

Sounds like a factory hooter,

To awaken the ploughman

from his submission to the work hard,

And realize the world beyond the field.

 

The long-shadowed sun picture:

A weaver bird’s nest

hanging still and safe,

Similarly, the mushroom huts

warm with the lights glowing now,

All seem ready to face

the upcoming dark for the day next.

 

A cuckoo sings

a little song of bravery

for the hut, the nest

and everything at the dark front.

 

A crow ogles at the subsiding

redness in the south-west,

Whose vanishing traces

leave its eyes parted wide

and smirking with amazement,

Suddenly, realizing the need of time,

Off it goes with a flutter.

 

This slow acceleration of

the day into the night;

The gentle fluidity of the light and the dark

embracing and melting into each other,

The gentlest of a brace,

The slow pace,

Unnoticeable bonhomie,

And biggest will be the change;

The change as snaily

as some minutest growth to the wheat saplings.

 

Thus the sunset is imminent,

Moments stand calm and meditative;

Like we at the birth time

know nothing of the life ahead.

 

The cool air and the mist

with their dense brush,

Paint a picture tranquil,

With the protagonists standing still,

Save some small movement

among the boyish wheatlings,

And the ‘painted lady’ butterflying.

 

The sun goes down further,

Its rays now dissolve

in a woodpecker’s eyes

perched atop a tall eucalyptus;

Undefined colour of the painter’s disk,

Thus, the sunset is imminent;

The scarecrow in a field,

The proxy owner in the farmer’s absence,

Begins now to enliven,

With each degree of the sundown,

It enlivens more and more

to protect the child crop;

The farmer’s self symbolized through

the effigy turned human,

Or ghostly, in the dark.

 

The rim goes below,

Thus it’s all over for the day!

The sadness of the moment,

Or the joy of the job done,

And they all stand sunless,

In a state of sweet sorrow

for the celestial minstrel gone,

But still the moment is

pleasing for the soul.

 

Although everything

may not glow like a diamond,

But like an ill-formed sapphire,

It has its maze,

Where everything has got

mixed feelings, mixed appearances.