JOURNEY’S END

No sprout did I see
Along the asphalt road
That I trudged.
But you narrate stories of bushes and birds
And tall trees and hedge crickets
Luscious fruits and flowers and vines
I don’t refute it
Surely, you can’t be wrong.

Gasping for breath
Perspiring
I ran on and on
Picking up pebbles and stuffing
My pockets and bags and baskets
You talk of the blubbering babes
You speak with glee in your eyes
Of the blush on the maiden cheeks
You fall into ecstasy
Describing the ambling clouds
Floating over hills and dales
I don’t refute it
You can’t be wrong

My gaze was fixed on pebbles
No song passed through my years
Nor did anybody sob
Resting his head on my shoulders
No dream stirred my soul
I ran and walked and walked and ran
Still pebbles pebbles and more pebbles
Weighed down weary dazed
I came to my journey’s end

PURGED AND CALM

People- you haven’t brought rain
o king of clouds
To this thirsty land
you rise from distant oceans
Amble over hills and dales
Groves bowers and towers
Palaces and castles perched on hills
You look pale shrunken small
But no drops fall
cloud- i am purged and calm
The brute in me subdued
What beatitude what bliss!
All my water I have poured
In gusts of tears
on a woman of seventy-eighth
who daily washes the swaddling clothes
Of her infant son
And keeps his toys well arranged
For though six decades have passed
When he died and was taken away
He may return home today
All the long summer days
All the long winter nights
She waits for him
and stares at the distant path
Every whimper of a baby in the neighbourhood
Sends a quiver from her breast
deep down her womb
And beyond the infant’s tomb


Rajendra Garg
54/8,Mansarovar,Jaipur 302020
Phone-0141-2785170