Pastoral....

life;

why not return to it.......

                    charu

Pastoral

Frolicsome

Frolicsome

Over-The-Top Topper

Topper

Commiseration

Commiseration

An evil struck again

Stole lives unsuspecting

Supplanted survivors’ joy

With incalculable grief

That shall never see relief

Their eyes grow dim

And hearts numb

As each glint of their tears

That rolls down their cheeks,

By traces, washes away

The sparkle of their eyes

Head hung in shame

I shed tears, I do so

In a futile hope to

Ease their pain

Cleanse the stain

Of inhumanity

A drop at a time.

             …charu

Textures

Textures

Waterspots

Waterspots

Storm

Last night

with raging storm

I asked the sky

such howls 

such torrents,

why.

Just wait.

She tore open herself

with a lightening bolt

For a moment

I saw her heart

roiling with dark torments

I  knew, how can she not

                                   charu

Storm

Vestiges....

of fall colors before they fade

Vestiges-1

Vestiges-2

As if.....

As if.....

Unwise perhaps

ambiguous it is not. 

Undeclared

unrequited,

forever 

my love must remain.

Ye shall never know

I have entombed thee

deep within

my heart and soul

concealed from me and 

the rest of the world

as if,

you never were

                   

                     charu


image: clip art

Underground

Underground1

Layers

Layers

Fog

Fog

In Memory-Pushpa Gandhi

A family member passed away a year ago.  In her memory.....

Pushpa

She was 

with no one

among us,

only disenfranchised

to call her own

She served slums,

poor and needy

not all but some

yet, much too many.

She once took me to a field  trip,

Juhapura we went

where I learnt, 

slums and ghettos

have slums and ghettos

of their own.

On to her work

we stepped over 

open sewers;

covered our noses

to stem the stench of 

human excrement,

rotting dead rats and dogs.

We walked dirt roads with

puddles turned swamps

mosquitoes a-swarmed.

She helloed owners

of butcher shops where 

animal carcasses

hung from the hooks

buzzing with flies. 

She befriended women

suffering abuses

of all versions. 

She taught them

the art of survival

by helping them

market wares they crafted 

with their own hands.

It brought them

pride,  joy

and perhaps

two bits of coin

This,

I saw first hand but once 

and lost my sleep;

she made her vocation

and slept well through

for she did her part.

True to her calling,

she donated her live body

to a cause, poor.

She donated her dead body

to a cause, medicine.

A true Social Worker.

.....charu