Posted on sulekha.com in 2011 at http://creative.sulekha.com/three-poems_83916_blog
1. Little Angels
In the balcony
where ferns twine the rods and railings
Just as a trellis furnished on the balustrade wall
with her child in arms, full of care.
When they come
meeting the kid’s welcome
“tweechee, tweechee”
she is happy.
Coz her cherub
will have its first morsel.
The nature, the creation,
the sight,
the children of the universe –
it all looks so beautiful
much more than what my poem can express.
(Written after looking at sparrows in my balcony)
2. Gujarat
Hey coffee house philosopher,
was it all just wool over our eyes?
for they believe literally in the scripture.
When the fires erupted,
punishment by law was not enough but
where were the thoughtful words on
Self, wisdom, transience, predestination?
When the hordes reacted,
in the red hot binders,
all bundled together,
burnt were your metaphors.
And we came to know
the cries
raped victims, burnt bodies,
and a plucked foetus.
Thus was shown
the deeds of the majority in face of adversity.
Thus was shown
the plain stupidity of ancestral biases.
Lives snatched but when
God’s expression in hymns,
from which you drew inspiration,
got a semitic burial,
you sophisticated wordsmith,
in the explosion of your inconsequence,
you pretender,
you lost, you lost, you lost.
3. Beach Girl
I wanted to ask her feigning to be jaunty
“are they not playing music here on the beach?”
She would say, “no do they ever play music on the beach?”
My words and her words in two different worlds.
No music here on the beach
but the encounter would be so melodious
That my evanescent session could offer, I realized
As she walked along the waters into the dark.
(after a visit to Southbeach, Miami, FL)
mhwrites 