A Look

A look
(On a photo of a brooding old lady)

P K Routray

A fading memory holding

a fistful of treasure of

pearls, rubies and diamonds

tinged occasionally with mire and mud

from hidden treasury or dumped debris.

From mud and mire emerged

many lilies and lotus in life,

from blue clean and sweet water

also have emerged sharks and crocodiles.

Faces, features, relations and characters

changes and withered with passing time.

Parents, siblings, friends and foes

uncles, aunts, relatives and neighbors

colleagues’, in-laws and passersby in life

permanent and transitory

once inseparable, both sweet and bitter,

now in oblivion and beyond memory lane.

Anger and affection

soft, sweet or thunderous screams

fears and apprehensions

causing once nightmare

truth and falsehood

fights, funs and frolics

now as if a satiric recollection,

or draws sighs of compassion and disbelief.

Dad’s mummy the old lady

face in black and white album, hard to locate

slept and silenced, went in coffin.

father’s cry rare but pathetic

so many emotional outbursts

trials and tribulations,

funs and frolics of life

gradually thinned and evaporated over time

repaired replaced with new thorns and thrones.

all gone to oblivion.

Stream, river mountain are witness

silently remember the story.

Flower, fruits with monotonous regularity

with its fragrance, taste and beauty

changing color and taste with age.

Many expectations were belied, many fulfilled.

Tears smiles and silence of

joy and pathos. love and hate

anguish and laughter

their types and forms

Truth, hypocrisy, falsehood

Compassion, emotion, erosion

with results some as anticipated,

many unanticipated,

as fixed by destiny.

With many births, deaths, separations, unions

flow tears of variety of colors and emotion

Strange is time

Wiped out everything so vivid and vibrant

now morbid and a fun, a sigh.

History of life, a story,

grand children laugh

She must have also laughed questioning the realities.

Unknown to come, uncertain to happen

She looks at past and future

where present is only fleeting and transitory.