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.

The Little Sparrow

 

Passed the long stormy night,

The tiny sparrow saw a world,

Strange and scary enough to turn him

worried for the first time in life.

 

The sunrays ended the gloom,

Darker was the clouded night,

Light brought but misery more,

Far away was he from his little nest,

‘The night storm took away everything,’

Sighed he,

His little body aching due to the strikes

by the unseen drops in the dark,

Aching were the delicate feathers,

due to the buffeting wind,

Shivered the little one,

under the impacts huge.

 

Remembered he,

how a watery gust

blew away their nest in the dark,

In just one pitiless moment,

lost was the warmth of his siblings,

And gone was parental protection,

Thrown away they were into the night,

as the tree lost its footing.

 

Played he always there,

Never thought or worried,

Realized he now the opposite,

Piteously ruffled was the fur,

Distorted were feathers,

Desperately he looked for his family

in a nest still intact nearby,

It was a replica of their own world,

Wept the little one with its poor whole,

Thought, he will die.

Humane is My Village

 

The air is laden with cooperation,

No thorny apathy;

No mob to throng the cornered self,

And murderous individualism axing hearts,

Here, we have a mixed self: the kind behemoth.

 

Neither bucolic love and unity whole,

Nor nucleated as in concrete jungles;

Limited is the spectrum; holds which

tender human bond still strong, and

live we all in slow majesty of decent unconcern.

 

The hunger and thirst for electricity and water,

Though dents the moral fabric a bit,

But in patience and forbearance the real self prides—

To bear all hardships and deprivations;

And adapt to disadvantages all.

 

The people still carry habits, conventions old,

Burdened further by the stuff new,

Still, carry they the rusted self with rural pomp,

Habituated to ignore and move on,

Veneers which as rough pride of the ruralites.

 

The commuters to the city carry old bags,

Hoping to fetch something new,

The very same villagers still they are

whose rough-hewn character

breathes with unease in the city big.

 

Still able to smile and laugh,

Holding a big open heart

in its tanned, work-beaten, hairy chest,

Priceless it is for the modern world,

Very few as there are places such.

Friendship Unsocial

 

A lot of relations throng,

God creates some,

Draw we some in the social garb,

But nothing relates humans,

as does friendship divine.

 

Lynched by formality is this world,

For nothing is society but rules of convenience;

The individuals form society by

becoming ceremonious, social to all,

Doctrined are thus the relations here.

 

But, friendship evades laws,

Most informal as it is,

Sheds away all cautioned, decorated self;

Enlarges the individual’s scope with soul freed,

Suffocated who earlier with the chained self.

 

All behave stilted, skewed here,

Some for their own greed,

Also, some for others’ harm,

Thus framed in cunningness becomes each,

As nothing else is society.

 

But friends share all,

Break they walls of social norms and etiquette,

Multiplies individuality to

become a spacious whole,

Ethereal is this ‘unsocial’ supplement.

 

Many envy the enhanced persona;

Individuality lost among the friends,

But, the enlarged self never

goes astray; such is

friendship, fracturing formal rules.

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.