The Coastal Road

 

 The coastal Road

The roaring of the ocean
Took away my attention.
The winding coastal road
Awash with the spatter of waves.
 
The humans yearning to command.
Carved a road from the ocean sand
Like a butter knife cutting through
A frozen block of salted butter.
 
The majesty of the blue ocean
Linking continents.
From East to West and North to South
Its beauty humbles humans.  
                          
Lined on the other side
Rainforests, green in all its shades.
Basked in the receding sunshine
Eager for a glimpse of the setting sun.
 
The Sun in all its grandeur
Decked like a bride
With face shining bright
Chaperoned from East to West.
 
As I strolled down.
The coastal road merged.
Between the ocean and the forests
Into an expanse of sea sand.
 
The Sun is now at its docile best
Took the horizon in its stride
Sucking in all the light,
For the world to rest another night.
 
The darkness soon engulfed
The ocean, the sea sand, and the forest.
The birds and animals
All in eerie silence.
 
Then I saw him - a Sage,
A human silhouette.
Rising from the ocean, crossing the sands
To merge with the forest ahead.
 
Hair entangled,
Like darkened rays of the sun.
Eyes calm, penetrating.
To view the world around.
 
After sanctifying the ocean,
Its flora and fauna,
The Sage returns to his forest.
Only penance could absolve the world.
 

The Magic Box

 

The magic box
 
The square piece of mirror,
A magic box, we kept so safe,
Hidden in the school diary
Under the creaking desk.
 
The class in forced attention
For history was the students’ tension.
Pages of history turned too quickly.
Thirteen years of war in an hour.
 
Pupils cared not
If the Gordian knot was cut or untied.
Class of twenty, disinterested
Whether Porus or Alexander won the war.
 
The boredom eased as I pulled out the mirror.
The magic box that captured scenes around.
My friend Bob and I gazed into the mirror
Shifting its focus to the backbenchers.
 
The magic box swiftly static.
For Bob, the ebony-haired,
Pink-ribboned, pony-tailed fairy was magical.
A welcome Interlude to the boring history classes.
 
The classroom clock struck twelve
My friend clasped onto the magic box
Eyes fixated.
Till the recess bell resonated.
 

A handful of earth

 

A handful of earth

I walked through the woods
Amidst the morning mist,
The sunrays pierced through
To give darkness a miss.
 
The silhouette of flocking birds transforming,
From a line, horizontal across the blue
To an echelon formation.
Ruling the sky, at least for a while.
 
The birds floating across the heavens
Gaining strength from their numbers
Unwary of the lurking danger
All around.
 
A solitary bird drops to the earth.
The flock moves on
No camaraderie, no remorse
No quest for a reason.
 
The bird fell dead
Way ahead of my path
Sunlight now in its fullness
Guided me to the feathered creature.
 
No warble, no chirp
Only a squeak and a stutter.
The bird as still as a pebble,
Soon to be embedded.
 
In a handful of earth.
Then the worms and the ants.
 
 

Humans, the vermin - aliens, the master

 

Humans, the vermin - aliens, the master

The ants, termites, and bees.
Never at rest.
Trudging along untiringly
Probing and searching.
 
Food and shelter
For the queen,
The slaves and the workers.
To live together in familial harmony.
 
Reigning supreme.
Humans perceive
World is under their feet
With rights to trample lesser creatures.
 
Ants, termites, and bees
Mercilessly stomped by human feet.
Vermin have no reason
To coexist with superior humans.
 
Then came the aliens
At first imaginative, then for real
Human superiority a myth,
Its survival is soon at stake.
 
Aliens gazed from their universe
Upon the world to see
Not vermin
But tiny humans running helter-skelter.
 
Humans like vermin,
Never at rest.
Trudging along untiringly
Probing and searching.
 
The predator
Humans feared for eons.
The aliens
Could trample humans out of this world.
 
Humans, the vermin,
Aliens, the master.
 

Why do genders cause a divide?

 

Why do genders cause a divide? 

The world,
Opened itself to one and all.
The puny accommodated, 
Mighty mellowed.
 
In this world, my friend and I
Lived in shanties close by.
Paddy fields all around us.
We walked, we ran, and pushed each other.
 
The village school two miles away
Beneath the peepal tree, the teacher sat.
We merrily gathered under the copious crown
Of the solitary peepal tree.
 
Care, friendship, and love filled the world.
The puny and the mighty
Selflessly caring for each other;
With no time to fight.
 
The weekends filled with fun and frolic
Bathing in that village pond
With water buffaloes all around.
Nice to live with friends abundant.
 
The village schooling soon ended
The nearness that guided her and me,
Hand in hand, for a decade, bottomed out.
And gone.
 
Like branches,
Moving away from its trunk
Togetherness widened further and beyond.
Defying friendship.
 
Why do genders cause a divide?
Puritan values not for men?
Only for women who live for men
To pawn their freedom and their might.
 
Abide by changes that come one’s way.
The world now a better place
Cleansed of all parochial thoughts.
Realize that men and women run the world.
 
The world,
Not men’s, not women’s.
Together one lives, and together one dies.
Basking in friendship we hold so dear. 

Seasons Four

Seasons Four

Spring, summer, autumn and winter
The floral spring, the sunny summer,
Cozy autumn and the forlorn winter.
Seasons four, for you and me.
 
For flowers in bloom
It is the spring that matters.
A few take to summer too.
Autumn and winter are not in their world.
 
Flowers in hues of orange and yellow,
Adorned the trees with ornate tiara.
Nature at its best but only for a while.
The flowers soon droop to sink to earth.
 
The earth now a flowery mosaic.
But gently the flowers are blown away.
Unsung into wilderness.
The floral rug soon disappears.
 
The honeybees would tell tales
Of flowers that lives but only for a day.
Seasons four, for you and me
But for the flower, it is just a day.
 
Flowers like friends are not forever.
The friendship cast in gold
Indispensable, but with time,
Dispensability is the theory bold.

My Mummy

 

Can you hear me mummy
I am sure you can
When you were here
You heard even what we did not say.
 
You thought we did not care for you
But we cared and wanted you,
To be with us a wee bit longer.
Hats off to my brother who nursed you till the very end.
 
Please take care of us from heaven above.
For a time will come
When we will be on bed
This time all alone, but hopefully we will meet you there.