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.