Grandma’s way

Grandma’s way

Counting only up to twenty
my grandma never lived in Scanty.
The aids who served her
never knowing the number
got their wages without a grumble
as then mutual faith was not brittle.
To me, the meaning of wise and wisdom
is the assimilation of knowledge, wholesome
by virtue of human acumen and intellect
where the touch of divinity does reflect.
Devoid of being benign
without touch, divine
unwise it is to call it wisdom
as then it turns it, out to be venom.
Not knowing how to read and write
a whole epic people then can cite
dealing with the divine wisdom,
analyzing and absorbing some
listening to every evening session
on the epic benign deliberation
in every village as an ancestral tradition
hence they stay morally, bounden.
Hence in earthly dealing, were found its reflections
In them," wise" and "wisdom" had their true definitions.
Tinged with selfish motifs causing falsehood and rift
weeps the earth today to the immorality, this shift.
Look at the environmental degradation,
that selfish motif and immorality have done
Can you call it as wisdom as the modern definition
Certainly not of it my illiterate grandma will make fun.
Travel I long today to my grandma’s day
to live wisely in her unwise way.

P K Routray
in the service of the Lord