The Parrot and the Old Sparrow
After a long, hard, heavy, wearisome journey
at sun down,
its will a bit cast down
and temper with a little frown,
The parrot with wings tired,
its beautiful colours all mired
in hard journey’s perspiration
landed on a branch.
Winter was at its peak,
And anxious, drooping, panting was the beak,
With every minute saffron slanting rays
were melting into misty bays,
Cold was slowly creeping up
and its pinch was becoming bold
to take everything in its hold,
With sad eyes it ogled at the setting sun,
Too long and taxing had’n the run
and long forgotten was the flight’s fun,
(Where was that fleeting, winged pun?)
With each mile the journey had become a drag
and vigour and energy that uplifted him with a brag
were now dumped in some pit,
Last ounce of strength was then hit,
But still he had far to go,
while his height became continuously low,
Before the eventuality did he bow
and anchored his feathery weight
upon a branch’s restful bait,
‘Merciless, frost-fanged will be the night,’
he thought to his misery’s delight,
As the warmth vapoured off his body,
Shudder came over him with incremental ease,
Anxiously he ruffled his feathers
as if to loosen cold night’s siege,
Where to spend the night
he thought from depression’s highest heights,
Suddenness of sunset made him realize
the possible utility of the remaining time,
And he looked around like the
feeble truth emanating from a sad rhyme,
For miles long everything appeared
surrendered to the twilight’s imminent pal,
And all wood appeared solid and creviceless;
without that niche which is a bird’s hall,
Before his despair and agony touched another peak,
he heard a muffled, breaking-free, old, juvenile shriek,
An old sparrow,
its grayish patches long under time’s harrow,
was seen bathing in a puddle,
Seeing him his senses went into a chilly huddle,
‘Hey, such a cold night in waiting!
Take care it does not become death’s baiting!
Fellow, you must take care
and must not extend your dare
to the extent of your doom!’
The sparrow squeaked and shrieked with zoom,
‘My old coat has enough room
for the water to turn vapours
and shun and beat death’s creepers!’
With his saggy, drenched feathering
the sparrow flew to him for a hearing,
And the visitor’s problem was told,
Said the sparrow becoming gracious and bold,
‘Dear, I have no family
and live in a banyan crevice,
Come with me, I’m at your service!’
It was a horribly chilly night,
No light for miles to sight,
Chilly rainstorm beat against the tree
to uproot the shackles and set it free,
But the tree was strong,
It withstood the deathly throng.
‘I live here all alone,
Though reminiscences sometimes come to moan
over my beautiful, active past,
Darted when I fast
and voowed damsel sparrows with finesse,
Raised families as the cost for my instinct’s ecstasies,
Then age caught with me,
Now eyes no longer see
the beauties of this world around,
but sense the death’s bloodthirsty hound.
Still I live happily as the tail-end
of that great life lived,
Enjoyed I the choices that fate sieved,
Now, I have to pickup and play
among those things and chaff discarded
which remain unwanted above
as fine particles trickle below,
Steadily this discarded heap grew
While I enjoyed the sieve’s fine brew,
Now I roll like a kid in that rubble of past
which was once waylaid by youth’s blast,
It now becomes the precious wealth
of my old age,
Shiny becomes the rage in this haze,
There are no takers for it now,
So I enjoy it all alone
without that competition’s drone,
Happily I’m all alone with my age old,
And try even to become bold
against this winter’s hold,
During youth I flew majestically high
To beat cold by my blood warmths,
But now wisdom swarmths,
And I still find ways
to brightly lit my days with these feeble rays,
In this cosy wood-hole of mine
Drunk I’m with my age’s vintage wine,
I know that I may not go out of this hole
to ride softly on time’s back at some dawn,
When mortality may pick up the pawn,
Leaving this old feathering engraved
in this very woody niche,
But that does not make me sick,
Because that sleep does not seem
different from the one that I now enjoy,
The pitcher of desire no longer exists,
Neither is it empty
so that I must have desires to have it full,
Nor it is full, so that I should browbeat
being afraid of losing it,
The sinews holding life to my body
have become impassive, senseless and bloodless,
They will not feel the pain of cleavage:
It will be just like an autumn leaf
being painlessly windblown into oblivion,
In this tepid existence of mine,
devoid of both heat and cold,
warmth and coolness prevail in some
pleasant, vague proportion,
Pleasure and pain seem to have lost their specificities:
Neither both exist, nor are they dead.
You are young and colourful!
How come you look so submissive and sad?
Have the conditions been so bad
to steal and rob all the real charm
and leave the colour on the feathers and soul
so dull and poor?’
The parrot spoke:
‘Though I am young
but the spirit seems to have sung
the last song of life,
Too much has been the pain and strife,
My spirit seems to have run dry now,
Though the colour on my feathers holds somehow,
When just a hatching, father was gone,
Grew I hearing mother’s moan,
The paternal sun thus never shone,
Still the biggest consolation was mother’s
caressing, preening, feeding beak,
Ate I fruits at love’s supreme-most peak,
As the sole nestling
I was fattened on her labours daylong,
And then went to sleep hearing her lullaby song,
Aha! Sweetest dreams came with a throng!
My whole existence was tethered
to that maternal pole,
The brightest, attractive-most star sole!
Under her great grooming,
colours on my feathering came bright,
Lavishly they flashed as I fluttered
them for my first flights,
Unbelievable was the pride and compassion
as her soaring soul’s maternal shades touched brightest heights,
In her eyes I saw a new light,
How marvelous was that sight!
Alas her incorruptible love of yore
was arrowed by fatality’s shot,
Again cupid’s love arrow came hot,
I became a past with negligence and rot,
She was now in another spring of love,--
Incipient love for the future in her womb,
I thus became an orphan
even though my parents lived,
After many cries and anguished aimless flights bereaved,
Life’s burden with my soft feathers I heaved,
Young and beautiful, flew I with
time’s oblivion and balm,
Intoxicating is such youth’s charm.
Inevitably I fell in love,
Heartfully I cooed my beautiful lady,
Those love-lorn days when heart
was ever ready to sing an ecstatic ditty,
Such a wealth was in my kitty,
So sweet, silent, mirthful, unencumbering
were those acceptances of nuptial responsibilities,
Those watchful, eager searches for niches
in trunks for our nest,
Tirelessly we wandered around for the best,
Guided by love’s brace
we found our place,
In this tiny hole
nothing else but we had all the role,
Our identities melted into each other,
How proud was I when I became father,
I’ll not become like my parents, I thought,
I will not be ensnared like they were caught,
So I clung to my possessions with pride,
But the inevitability came with a chide,
In full bloom of youth and colours
all of my brood flew away,
My lady-bird came to be infatuated
under someone’s cooing sway,
It was another fine day
when she bade adieu and flew away,
I embodied all forlornness,
All my loss was glaring in my face
monstrously unremedied,
I decided to leave that place,
And my sulking wings did brace
to take up the longest possible flight
from the place where such unfaithfulness abound,
So flew I as if pursued by
fearsome-most flying hound,
For many days I have been flying
with my soul aching and wings crying,
Why should we enter into something
and love somebody so completely,
if it is bound to gutters,
Isn’t all such temporary dives
into life all banal,
Aren’t we cogs in the hands of those
inevitable, unstoppable processes?
The old sparrow, full of wisdom,
Undisputed king of his life’s kingdom,
Spoke with the solace and simplification of age,
When youth’s dilemmas no longer
haunt with their pinch and rage,
The sparrow said:
‘Its just like a flower ruing
and weeping over other blooms,
because its beauty will not last forever
and will go to glooms,
Dear, it’s not we who are the ends,
Rather the beautiful phenomena like
love, marriage, procreation that decide the trends,
We are just means to these
beautiful ends and destinations,
So, become a tool uncomplaining
tilling earth without any expectations,
It is not that love exists
because we do love someone,
Love is the primordial sea without any
limits of space, time and individualities,
It is we who sweeten a few
moments of life with it,
till the chaotic, destructible existences get hit,
Do we procreate to cling to procreation life long?
No! We are made to procreate
to become unselfish means for the propagation,
for handing over the batons,
to perpetuate these beautiful phenomena of
love and relationships,
We do not leave behind an offspring,
but a possible instrument
which might come in handy for
the sustenance and survival of
those very precious moments
that got us the taste of love, happiness
and contentment at their best,
And if we recognize that
then our spirit gets a solacing rest,
If not,
then caught in the web of selfish net,
we acrimoniously bet
that I completely loved her
and became the cause of young lives,
It was I who caused that buzzing in those hives,
But such limitations would have been
meaningful had our survival unlimited,
or say our immortality was uninhibited,
But our journeys are to be ended,
So just cherish those moments which you tended,
If you cling to these phenomena
like they are your inheritance forever,
They become a drag around your neck,
making you a prisoner behind bars,
which you create around yourself,
Liberate fella! Liberate yourself!
Become a journeyman who understands that
young flowers on a plant,
young soots on a twig
do not lessen themselves or the spring,
in not ruing over their wispy autumnal dismantling,
for they inculcate phenomena,
They help perpetuate treeness
And they sustain the beautiful,
natural concepts of beauty and bloom,
They also served in a similar way,
made some new ray (though it is only light)
to decimate in some shadows, some gloom.’
The long fabric of the stormy night
was slowly lifted over their head,
Outside, stormy chilliness was fleeting
before a promising twilight,
Chances were there for a day bright,
Clouds parted from the face of sky,
The parrot’s spirits cut through the shadows
and soared high,
The old sparrow said:
‘The day today is warm and sunny,
The dawn promises sweet honey,
Youngman, I’m in hurry to come out of my hole
and play my chirpy role
in the beautiful stage set around,
My soft soufflés and feeble light in my eyes
are enough even for the down-hilly afternoon,
You but go high,
because the forenoon is there for you,
with its multihue,
Go, so that you do not rue over
the day aimlessly lost,
Do justice to the old spirit of thy host,
Take some lesson from my soft feebleness
and the way I make a day out of my night.
Thanking him the visitor flew away
into those swathes of promise,
where new life, new love, new relationships
held sway!
