Επιμέλεια: Εύα Πετροπούλου Λιανού
The tears-Stressed
Am the inhabitant of a dark world where man eats serpents and vomits religious scripts,
With synthesis of philosophical understanding is built in the laboratories, the computer software.
Never mind that
Perturbed by human misery, ignorant probably, I ask the cowboy one day,
Ripeness, decay, death. To have lived long, is a bliss or a bane?
Pardon me, if I don’t have the memory of previous birth.
In disturbing silence, my searching eyes
Negotiate with the tear-stressed, vacant looks of old bulls and cows,
Neglected, unattended,
Affectionately licking the younger ones, who, not they,
Expectantly receive maximum attention and care.
From the resting area in the shed, the questioning mind enters the yard.
Here meets the old Tulsi plant, watered with excess care,
The pious lady scared while the withered plant dies despite her daily pujas and prayers,
Yes. Ripeness is all, a comforting axiom. Tears are costly.
Heavy sighs nowadays, no less astonishing!
A foreboding it is. The Tulsi dead, the house would be deserted by Goddess Laxmi, sure. But
Just a waiting of three, four, maximum five days and what a wonder!!!
Three Tulsi saplings in the adjacent area!!! Cheers!
The lady’s happiness in the discovery
Raises another question. Sorry.
Come back to coffins
If productive or not is the only criterion to be judged by,
At ripe age grow understanding and sense, why Father has schemed thus?
Only if with delayed realization of children, grow up thankless,
Come back to coffins, thousand poor souls, gone with depressions, benumbing,
Parental figures, dames and sires, slowpoisoned.
I glance up and receive the nods,
Hanging on the walls, capsulated respect, the photo frames,
White chandan and garlands maximaize the effects.
Dejected figure, lost in questioning, I plead with mother Nature for a clue to oldage agonies,
And she leads me to the garden outside.
Don’t know who am I
Created to give as much as they can,
The old trees spread out branches; shades to whoever needs it,
Awaiting for the day their foster children come,
To cut the same branches offered voluntarily.
Now I understand. Only with human species,
The flow of expectations, generated and continues, unnaturally.
Sardonic smile on the lips of the mother planet old, freezes my heart and soul.
The lady stands unresponsive.
I will again come to wipe her tears if her progeny is
Spring to alien growths, Winter to her calls, fears and hopes.
After all, the old trees stand for experience,
what matters most.
The trees stand fixed. Mindless or
Immobilized in grief?
We are to understand , happy or unhappy, the question is immaterial.
Don’t know who am I, perhaps a sleeping conscience, half- awakened. Who knows?
*Tulsi is a medicinal plant worshipped by Hindus as goddess.
Laxmi is the Hindu goddess of wealth and prosperity.
Chandan is a Bengali word for sandalwood.
