We Prayed for your Death

We prayed for your death

P K Routray

My dear departed friend!

Brutes were we who prayed for your early end.

Cancer inside spreading beyond limit

with deteriorating respiratory system worsening it,

all supporting medical gadgets’ failure to fight,

had harrowing tales on you, we friends clearly could sight.

Being helpless and hopeless losing faith in any miracle

We prayed to relive you from the pain’s shackle.

Heart in heart we felt that the inevitable is drawing nigh

“Nothing man can do” being philosophical many told with a sigh.

We prayed, “ your soul must desert soon your mortal body

relieved of pain with joy to the Heaven our friend’s soul will flee.”

Swoon the sufferer with slumber which he never rises to write.

The agony to his kith and kin well-wishing him is hellish to fight.

Human ingenuity has failed so far to fight such deadly diseases

They only prolong the torture with physical and mental bruises

Mercy killing is a subject; our sensitive human heart cannot bear

hence we prayed the Almighty to take early you the sufferer.

We will never meet again on this mortal earth where we created each other

but in the unknown land hoping soon to join you for our quota of laughter.

N B My friend since sixties Jnana Ranjan Pradhan breathed his last after a prolonged sufferings staying in ventilator for more than two months. His void in my life will be felt bitterly even inspite of that I was a brute in praying to get him relieved of the pain. Please excuse me for my wrong doings. But it was a true fact)