Pillars
The pregnant ancient pillars
Stand erect and defying
Their steady time-disdaining gaze
Fills the air with awe and silence:
They knew father, a man and a child,
They saw Grandfather decades ago,
They witnessed great-grandfather’s
Birth and still echo the prayers
Recited at his funeral.
And I, before I lie
Low and humble, watch
The pregnant ancient pillars.
I understand their caring presence
And, with a finger-tip touch
On their smooth, responsive surface
Bequeath my offspring to their doting eye.
atheist
A homing pigeon that
forgot
Its way home
A handful of dust
In a howling storm
A stone catapulted
Into space
And landing
In the middle of
Nowhere
An arrow whose beginning is
Unknown
And whose destiny is
Oblivion
A leaf that
disowns
The tree
A billow-tossed boat
Never to reach
The shore
A fish that
repudiates
The sea
A baby estranged
From
its mother's breast
A dead man doesn't care
A dead man doesn't care
Whether his mouth is filled
With dust or diamonds.
A dead man doesn't care
Whether he is adorned with flowers
Or fouled with fetid smells.
A dead man doesn't care
Whether he is made to wear
A shroud of silk or thorns.
A dead man doesn't care
And why should he?
If his body has decayed
His soul defies mortality
The hand and the packet
The plump hand handed me
The small-sized, star-strewn, blue-coloured packet
Then, the same youthful hand
Put a siver coin on the counter
with the effigy of the president on it.
Thirty-three years later
The same hand handed me
the small-sized, star-strewn, blue-coloured packet
Then, the same hand
Put a silver coin on the counter
with the effigy of the president on it.
Only the hand has now become
Brown and a little bony
Furrowed with swollen veins.
Thity-three years hence
The same hand won't hand me
the small-sized, star-strewn, blue-coloured packet
Nor will it put the coin
With the effigy of the president on it.
Both hands- the tobacconist's and mine-
Will have lost their flesh,
their muscles and nerves.
Squeleton hands in the bosom of the earth
They will be ironically outlived by
The packet
The counter
And the coin.
Sunset
The light orange clouds
Set against the twilight
Stare at me from their
Chilly heights.
A moment later
Grayish clouds besiege
Them as they darken
And suck them in
The deep blue sky
Turns black
And the chilly little clouds
Are swallowed up.
