The Making
by Samartha
Vashishtha
And the clueless boy who thought
winter was his alone
looked through the window all night
hoping fervently the moon
would visit someday his room.
For days he fed on silence.
Heard Nehru shout
his Tryst With Destiny
from howling bathroom taps;
and believed a day would come
when either of Bill Gates’
and his piece of sky
when integrated1 from
one horizon to the other
would give the same world.
Like scriptures he read aloud
Paash2 and Neruda.
Recited A Request for Exclusion3
in a contest of patriotic poems.
The judges disqualified him midway:
his classmates called him a fool.
Then cutting through the slumber of time
when spring showed up, of late
‘longwith the trees heavy with flowers
Buddha
drooped in the west.
With all his heart, he suspected
instead of fruits this year
serpents would ripen on branches.
Nothing happened though.
From the frail figure, he begged pardon:
dumped the flowers, birds and stars
in the farthest corner of his mind
and wrote that night a poem.
Metre, rhyme, caution, all gone.
Bare ribs holding the sword.
