Live Bright in Dark

 

Dream it was, happened

between conscious and unconscious,

Lost I was in gloom, but

made it the flaccid self alive,

Passing was the night and

lying I was, stretched piteously.

 

Weak to the extreme;

Lined horizontal I was and dormant,

Existed so low, puny and dwarf,

But raised it me, telling

so little was left of the night;

Awake! Compensate the scrawny past,

I now realised, obscured was I by

my own fears in the darkness of night,

So low I’d made myself,

And piteously near to the ground.

 

Certainly some were there,

Who valiantly fought the gloom,

And were alive among the dead,

Realised I, lived they more,

Enjoyed the panorama swathed in darkness,

Made they full use of the pitch dark,

While the rest slept among the dog’s bark.

 

Vertical I turned myself,

Decided to be among the few,

Little was left of the night,

And lived then brightly,

With that great dream

shining in my eyes.

Footsteps Lost

 

Walking I was, some day,

Along a track; a tracery it was

of those who passed in the past;

‘Hurried only they,’ I mused; left poor trail,

Mingled which easily in the earth.

 

The beaten dust beneath looked

easy for a venture fresh,

Swayed I with pomp and pride,

for easy was the poor path to tread;

And admiring all, went I with a happy song.

 

The soil below seemed

only poorly tottered in the past,

As no footprint was distinct,

I will leave a permanent one,

Thought I, proud of youth and time.

 

Praised I everything,

Fresh and exuberant all,

Trying I was, to put

steps distinct, firm most,

So that mingle they not in dust soon.

 

Alas! Pinched the sun bitterly,

Shrewd wind howled; Hated I all,

Lost rhythm and balance, and tottered,

Vanished my footprints right there,

Sadly sighed I for their short span.

Thrives my Village

 

Life and people stroll easily,

Fast and furious urbanity outside

being the sole kicker at the easy pace,

It’s a rickety creaking pace,

Measuring minutes in hours,

Hours in days,

It retains its creaky pace

even if the land share may shorten,

or enforcing come the modernity’s grip.

 

They are all here,

and the same poor villagers,

Nature’s cruel bite or the soft hand,

It’s all but life whole;

Be the dripping roofs,

Mud in the streets,

Or ‘life drops’ in the fields,

All are the basics here.

 

The children too simple

and the creations of adaptations,

Stuffed in the studies captive

wait they for the last bell,

God’s pity or else,

Weak and empty they are not,

and will survive through life all.

 

The elders amazed at the change,

Try to catch up with the new,

But survive they only,

Age is a curse,

for it deprives one of the productivity,

Outcaste they are;

assemble and remain in a unified maze.

 

Simplest is the society here,--

The psyche prone to ignore,

The hands eager to work more,

And hence the life going with easy lore.

Heaven under the Hot Sun

 

The sun marches north; sultry evenings,

Bulging wheat pods await rituals last,

The wizened golden stalks ready

to surrender the fecundity crowning them;

Farmers cut, gather, reap and mow

with bull’s eye and parental care,

Birds filch every lost grain in the soil,

Crops smile daughterly in the days bright,

Hats off! Accept they the rites last with smiles.

 

A dog, dry-mouthed, awaits master’s lunch,

Birds, their beaks full, ferry the cargo to the nests,

A bunny runs in the fields bare,

looks for some hideout any;

Above, a gibberish crow caws a laugh,

A sparrow looks into a waterhole,

Few drops there and a hornet gnarls over,

A child plays under a tree’s hot shadow,

The air dances around the working mother;

Plays with pollen in hair long,

And she doing filigree with grains,

The locks of her hair try to protect

the ‘moon’ shining in the glaring day,

She jerks them away and smiles.

When I was Small

 

Bird was I, flew tirelessly

in what was to become golden past,

And the innocent, humane most,

Matured are the wings now,

But lost is ‘big’ in its bigness.

 

World was then,

as small as me, and beautiful;

Distorted are both today,

As I trample the ‘soft me’,

And the world grows up harsh.

 

Things only trivial now,

Hugely inspired that delicate heart,

The urge today being fat;

Lost is imagination and heart shrunk,

Mind has become iron clod almost.

 

Weak was then I,

for flying too high and far,

I flap wings too much today,

But tired I am,

as wings fall short of the desires.

 

Then I had only heart,

Too big and I lived,

I only survive today

with a tiny heart;

Vast is my mind today.

 

Frightened was I then of

most common, simple things,

But now, bold I am,

not to fear any inhumanity,

Present of that past, I am.

Sympathy Game

 

Disability, permanent or short-lived,

Is a cause of distress extreme,

For, sulks one in the ripped self,

A mere breaking star among shiny thousands.

 

Satisfaction of the competition

being the fuel of life,

As nothing else is society

but relentless rivalry among the capable.

 

Abhorred is robust and fit here,

Know they, fitness is nothing

but a hindrance in their path,

And cursing goes everyone.

 

No time for the interests common,

As heart has shrunk much,

Bellicose is man, bellows only;

Bereaved human is rival such.

 

Ah! The redeeming glimmer exists,

Thank God! Thrown is someone

out of the race mad; abed is faculty,

Sprouts then the sympathy fountain.

 

Emotions, adages pour out

for the poor player out of the race,

Admire they the infirmity in him,

Already dead he is without playmanship.

 

It’s the disease and disability,

Making you suffer lot,

Yet smile at it,

For it has aroused an emotion precious.

The Old Man and the Hut

 

The old man and the hut,

Reed and grass sheltered

like the old bones in his body frail,

And both of them hold

on the brink of life and death,

being and non-being,

Wispy fleecy in a hush,

Penned down by the destiny when

she was on flying clouds

and wanderlust.

 

The old man, nobody knows

from where he came,

Stranger even than a foreigner;

Wind-fallen in his own land,

A pedigree, on the verge of

ending on his side;

Nobody to inherit the wishy-washy shelter.

 

Nature habituated to them,

The old man and the hut,

A small brook, a forest averagely thick,

And a loneliness persisting,

Save a sortie or two

by an occasional adventurer,

Who may come to spread the self.

 

Nothing changes here,

Except time through his wrinkles

and some sinew blown from the hut,

A marvellous, fluid constancy of nature:

Same chirps of the birds,

Same bubbling in the brook;

Also the same generality,

Except one particularity,

The old man and the hut.

 

Wintery shivers in his humble bed,

With eyes staring at the roof,

Giving strength to it

against the raindrops naughty,

Longing to play with him.

 

In summers, he sleeps outside,

In the open, under the starlight,

Too much light above!

But alas, too far!

Spread out thus in the open,

A look into the stars above

with the eager eyes of a child,

Then close with a peep

into the depths of age,

Thus sleep layers over him,

He knows not when,

And where, nobody cares.