She is like a bubbling brook
running happy under the green canopy
Playing hide and seek with her shores
and the sobered pebbles and thin grass blades
It is by her will that she speaks or remain silent
Meandering she flows in and out of my life
Almost vain in her acknowledgement
that the woods will never move
My muse says her stay is over
And before sunrise she must be away
To her house across green fields of clover
Where merry winds make her golden hair sway
Full were my pockets and my heart
For Hope dwelled in both these parts
She played around with me all day
And in the night, beside my bed she lay
She held my hands in troubled dreams
And caressed my forehead to settle me
Her peaceful eyes had me smile
And utter ever so often “I can walk for another mile!”
She walked ahead and I followed her
Blind to the misery all about me
But even when I did look around
I saw that Hope is abound
In the worker’s sweat
In the bookie’s bet
In the mother’s eye
And the lawyer’s lie
She is most impartial and answers
To the small, big, one and all
But there is such a thing as limit
And people just forgot about it
The greed and violence of the crowds
Hit Hope a little too loud
She fell unconscious and her breath came slow
Her slender body could not take the blow
With Ms. Hope falling sick, Doctor Courage was called
A big sturdy man he is, almost like a wall
He checked her pulse and peeked in her eye
“She is dead!” he exclaimed, and gave a sigh
– – –
I wrote this poem almost a year and a half ago and then forgot to publish it. And while it gives the impression of being tragic, I had penned it to humour the callousness displayed by people.
Sometimes it happens,
When you are caught unaware.
The sweet pain cuts through your heart
And all your feelings are laid bare
In that state of nakedness you find
The thread of love is what binds
You yearn to keep the thought for eternity
To escape and yet realise reality
It is then that you want to grow
To rise above and leave yourself below
The depth of your thoughts drown your doubts;
You dream about the eternal spring
And the end of the perennial drought.
The clarity of your own dreams dazzles you.
You look above and admire the sky so blue.
With your eyes wide open and all senses alert,
You take a deep breath and say
“Life is beautiful….”,
Hoping the euphoria continues for
Every night and every day..
Before one emotion dies you re-kindle another
Your intensity makes me laugh and shudder
Like imagination enslaved by a falling star
You capture my thoughts from afar
With every blink and every sigh
You posses each moment lest it fly
As the waves rise and fall
Hear the ocean sing a song to you
Must you not return the call?
Or is it that you have no clue?
Perhaps, you chose to ignore the signs
Binding you with endless twines.
The nudity of your own feelings intimidate you,
The overwhelming emotions are daunting too
You look at the sky
And fathom the endless space you have to fly.
You appreciate the joy that it brings,
Yet you hesitate to go out and spread your wings
To get the sun a rose must unfurl
The same is with wings and souls
And like the rose, every joy has its price
The sun brings gale and dust
The flight is a potential drop
And yet the rose petals out
Unmindful of losing itself
That and only that is living
For the rest is but existing
—
This poem written as a collaborative effort between a friend and myself. It was fun writing a poem over the email with each person writing alternative stanzas. It remained unfinished for reasons I no longer remember. But it was a lot of fun nonetheless.
Interested in trying it out?
Continued from Haystack
.
The old man got busy again
Labouring hard many winter and rain
He soon lost all count of days
And forgot his sons and their wayward ways
The Gods were kind and the produce good
But his wife no longer beside him stood
A content woman she was in her last days
For she built a school where children play
Then one day he got a letter
And tears streamed down his sharp cheekbones
Mackaw, his son, had written an apology
Saying that he did wrong back then
He wanted his parents to come stay with him
And promised to take good care of both
And many other stories he told
To try undo the mistake of old
So the old man too a letter wrote
In which he first forgives his son
And then continues to write this
That the field is where his heart is
Because the soil never gave up on him
And he is too old to try new things
So though now a son he has to call his own
The haystack still in the moonlight shone
Guldasta 
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