The Human Coronet

 

So strange are we humans,

Rule a swooning world by faking consciousness,

Take us to be the Kings but slaves we are

to the self-perpetuating mind’s yarn,

And always bowed down by the whirling emotions.

 

A tyrant is this human trait,

But compensates with coronation;

The humans rule with a heavy diadem,

Happy we are to be supreme in the food chain,

But fodder we are to our own selves.

 

Make we fun of the beasts

for being bald without the coronet;

The crown finds them too low,

So taken they are as light-headed and funny;

And we high with a loaded head.

 

Lashed is the master by the desires unstoppable,

Cries, wails, neighs, but cannot deny

as a revolting ‘no’ needs the head’s shake,

which the King’s craving avoids,

for any browbeat will turn the head bare.

 

Dressed we are with the shiny fabric

of chronic self-importance,

So much is piled up by the ‘thinker’

that it turns a creaky, complaining wagon,

Throw we then our load at others with hate.

Zeroed Self for the Crane Couple

 

The winter is ageing,

The small heaven sulks here,

Wheat’s seedlings strong now,

Dew feeds grass healthy,

Meekly await they, only you,

Yes, away you are! But where?

 

Winter always seemed natural,

Started with your arrival—

Legs long, wings big and beaks strong,

Made you look a bossy bird,

Echoed the horizon with your resounding cree…k,

Nothing is same without you.

 

What is this poor night

without those clarion calls?

Sailed which across the dark,

Now, the same night with

countless twinkling lamps above,

Alas! Missing is its pride.

 

So dull is the cold rain,

Drops waste without wetting your fur,

Ah, what luck of those

mingled which in your shabby coat!

Now die they in earth,

Tears are they for a chance missed.

 

Moon cared not about its diminishing size,

As you turned the crescent brighter,

Your gentle movements under

the chilly night played with solitude,

You alone were there to share its sorrow,

Empty now, and suffers alone.

 

Then, the sun played with earth;

Your shadow proved its essence,

Now, looks it timidly below,

Lost is its identity without you;

Nobody big like you is here

to play with the shining rays.

 

Red adorned you around the head,

The sky lost its colours in yours bluish gray,

The humans may envy size and

the stormy wind around the wings,

Even other delicate feathers looked strong,

Now, just poor birds are they.

 

Those long flights brought

the fragrance of land distance,

United was my country,

due to your migrations across it,

We felt unity in diversity,

Landed you down as you here.

 

Thy long strides measured the land,

Its vastness was proved by you,

Alas, lies it worthless now!

Unfortunate mother, without baby

to measure its maternal depth,

Away are you! Survive or not?

 

Little was your world,

despite all those bigs about you,

Bird’s vapour eyes you were not,

As, lesser was that scary alertness,

And still more, and more, as

I approached you with my humanness.

 

At a certain night

you tugged at my heart through the ears,

Heart’s imagery it was or else,

Maybe just a deep sigh of the past,

I don’t know:

At the zero hour

zeroed my imagination and reality.

The Weeping ‘Dead Place’

 

Solitary is the place,

Left out almost as a grave,

Comes nobody to live here,

As if a cemetery it is,

Beyond the nature-human tussle of life.

 

Pulled it never the time’s leg,

So passed it swiftly most;

Nothing blossomed here,

Which could drag along,

And force the time to stay and pause.

 

Shrubs, arid semi,

Rocky foothills small,

Faded grass, poor earth’s robe,

Sulks which in clumps,

at places here and there.

 

Chokes the wind to sing

the prayer for the dead,

Sunrays fall in impassivity,

And wail burningly,

Above is the sky forlorn and discharmed.

 

Thorny branch sheds tears

motherly for the birds,

But come they not in

the poor mother’s clumsy lap;

Play they in gaudy shades elsewhere.

 

Calls it the humans;

feebly crying to catch someone’s attention,

But, unbothered is everyone;

Man as well as nature,

All avoid this place.

That Great Flight

 

Merrily gushed the air,

Happily gyrated the tree compassionate,

Shook the nest; the nestlings became aware

of both good and bad comingled in nature.

 

Far away were the parents,

Laboriously engaged in ripe corn,

The farmer’s little son watched

the birds old, yet littlest to him!

 

Flew he them away unwillingly,

Due to father’s past rebukes,

Subdued which his innocence to give up

fancy and realize the ways of the old.

 

Flew then the group,

to that dense wood far,

Attracted which always

the little boy’s dreamy self.

 

Flew he also, one day,

On foot to catch his fancy,

Lagged behind but the poor,

for we humans trudge the earth only.

 

Realized the bird couple,

the plight innocent of the child,

Melt heart theirs for the child,

The same were in the nest.

 

Flew they slow and halted on the way,

To allow the man’s child to catch up,

Joined bird-human to fly,

Delighted which the mother earth.

 

The boy found himself in a dream;

Stood under the tree,

The birdie kids flapped their wings,

And parentally sang the bird couple.

Tolerance Divine

 

Bears society the onslaught,

Abound ‘isms’ around,

Suppress they the kind, loving natural self,

Dead sea are they,

Drowned is man in,

Modernity aids the evils old,

Making them almost immortal.

 

Shrinks the world today

with a deadly spasm,

Its small size

not a sign of humanity broad,

But a stone like

exploding dead apathy,

Useless is the human real

for the ultramodern heart,

Centuries tread away,

Tangled is man more;

Inhuman and intolerant manifold.

 

Yes! The only hope being

the tolerance divine;

The thing humane most,

Able to do good to all.

 

The chances to survive lie

not so in modernity,

As in being a human real,

Intolerant who is not

like a hardy machine soulless.

Rain, or Not?

 

Poor farmers provoked the monsoon,

For it’s their last savoir

despite the modernity all,

Farms, cattle, land lifeless feared the burning sand,

Looked meekly for the hope last.

 

Then came the respite thundering,

Healing them like mother’s kiss;

Hayricks, animals, mud-houses,

All made merry with jumpy Utopia,

But to a point only,

Because beyond that misery stares starkly.

 

Starts the spiritual plight again,

But for the opposite now,

Fee-fawing scarecrow turns the blessing,

As the little life of before,

Gets stalled by the gushing torrents,

Heresy turns all for the low-borns,

It’s a world swinging to the extremes,

Never allowing them the stable life of balmy

balance in the middle.

 

Viciously hammered all with the season—

Paddy appearing just grass over the water sheet,

The cattle gone ownerless,

And the farmers working tirelessly to

drain the great solvent away,

Now they pine for the dry earth;

Dreams of dry, buffeting, blinding sands,

Because water is the foe now.

 

Zoomed then the drama official,

In all its hypocritical sheen,

Came the dirty hand gloved nicely,

The chameleon offered the rites soft;

Joined mankind nature to plunder emotions.

 

But the poor people new,

The curse was no irresolvable puzzle,

Hide which can in the nature’s maze,

It was simply a man-made flood;

a common way of

saving a great city from getting flooded

by diverting the rich waters

to the poorer fates.

The Shepherd Boy

 

Lying was he in nature’s lap,

While his sheep grazed in

warmth early of a November sun,

Femininely undulating hillside it was,

Rolling pastures,

Overlooking thick-wooded shadowy vales.

 

The rock beneath gave all he needed:

Felt its hugging warmth and support hard,

Swirling came the breeze by the valley,

Intoxicating it was, as the bright sunrays

stole the bitter pinch.

 

Shared he the perfect calm,

His herd bleating in harmony,

Rubbing against each other and gambolling,

Running came a little lamb,

Licked his hands,

The master surrendering to the

titillating tinker of love and peace.

 

Gazed he skywards lazily,

His eyes saturated with nature,

Very thin foamy clouds trailed

across the vast blue unknown,

Same was his existence here.

 

Faced as he the serenity above,

Forgot the self, shone as his face

under the great fire’s light above,

Flew kites tirelessly there,

He too, with imagination unchained.

 

The wood below across the valley,

Sang with the season;

Some sound broke the silence now and then,

But sweet it was,

As nature was playing with itself.