Dark Brightness

Blue, green, red, golden
Mottled colours
I made your rockets, chocolates
Your electric-sparklers

Your child's visage
Reveals my age
But your child's mind
Doesn't bind
My revelations of God's rage
My value of my daily wage

When your purchased colors
Painted your skies
Mine faded forever
Did you hear my cries?
Or just bangs and blasts?

So for you bright lights,
Variegated colours
For me pitch blackness,
To live life's hours

This is another one from my angry teens.The fireworks industry in Sivakasi, India employed thousands of child workers and many of them got injured and blinded while working with the hazardous materials, which also shortened their lives. The situation is supposedly much better today with NGO campaigns and government action,even though it seems some units still employ children especially during summer vacations.

Jungfrau Visited

While the sun shines

Make hay,

I knew forever

Not the real way

Fields of green

Turn shades of brown,

As the farmers

Mow them down

Pied beauty

Of lucid purity,

For miles around

Defying serendipity

Orko and the Hunger Games – Reality Style!!!

His name was Orko - it came from the word urchin, Papa said teasingly. Ma had a better explanation – she said it came from the Sanskrit word Arkin meaning ‘radiant with light’. Orko was their third child – the one they decided to adopt as a baby. They had two kids of their own who were big brother and big sister to Orko. The arrival of Orko has brought with it, change in fortunes for the family who were going through some tough times. So, Ma was totally convinced that he was their lucky charm. Orko Chatterjee was two years old now.

Even though he was an outsider, he was treated with much love by all of them, especially Ma. Orko loved Ma the most as well. He would spend long hours just sitting and watching her move around the house doing her chores. She was a tall slender woman and always wore sarees. He loved to play with the folds of her saree and brush against them while trying to devour some of the maternal affection, and give some back in return.

The Triad

These three poems have had a profound and lasting influence on my thinking and way of life. They are part and parcel of me. I am sharing an excerpt from the first, and the other two in full, for your reading or recollecting pleasure.

 

The Dark, Blue Sea by Lord Byron

(I remember scribbling with a pencil, on the inch wide margin on the right of the poem – ‘this poem illustrates the transitoriness of man and permanence of nature’ - Truly humbling!)

Roll on, thou deep and dark blue ocean-roll!
Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin-his control
Stops with the shore;-upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan,
Without a grave, unknell'd, uncoffin'd, and unknown.

Pied Beauty by G.M.Hopkins

(Our English teacher had explained this poem to us, with an example of how coordinated tops and pants looked better then going monochrome from head to toe. Today’s fashion pundits sure get this concept very well with all the color-blocks. This one never fails to come to my mind, whenever I am on a plane, screening the landscape below. Let’s keep the hope alive that one day we will all see past our differences and cherish one another….. ‘cause that’s what makes us beautiful! )

Glory be to God for dappled things –

For skies of couple-colour as a brinded cow;

For rose-moles all in stipple upon trout that swim;

Fresh-firecoal chestnut-falls; finches’ wings;

Landscape plotted and pieced – fold, fallow, and plough;

And áll trádes, their gear and tackle and trim.

All things counter, original, spare, strange;

Whatever is fickle, freckled (who knows how?)

With swift, slow; sweet, sour; adazzle, dim;

He fathers-forth whose beauty is past change:

                                Praise him.

Leisure by W.H.Davies

(This is simply beautiful – Just Read It!)

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this is if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

The Coconut

Rugged hair
Browned shell
Takes a lot to break
Let the thought not dwell

Soft inside
Pure and white
Hardened with time
Still feels the bite

Poke a hole
The water trickles
Drop by drop
As the moments drizzle

Freefall

Every time I asked him a question, he took me to a cliff and pushed me over. Just as I would be about to hit the ground, he would leap down and hold me. It seemed to me that he thought of it as a game, but for me it was a complete mystery. Nevertheless, I am unsure why I always agreed to go with him.

This time he told me, 'Let’s go somewhere else'. For a few moments I was relieved, only to realize that we were heading for an even higher cliff. All I could see from the top was darkness. And then like always, he pushed me over. It was a few moments of agonizing freefall. But just as I was about to hit rock bottom, he came and liberated me.

Trance and Transience

For a fleeting moment
Life bloomed
And we grew wings
And floated like butterflies
For a fleeting moment

For a fleeting moment
Life floated
And we grew petals
And bloomed like flowers
For a fleeting moment

Life's fleeting moments
Life's a fleeting moment
We rejoice, we suffer
For a fleeting moment