Me, still amaze

Me, still amaze

 

Thus came a day,

abandoning my play

with pals since crawling days

on the dusty village pathways

and painfully bidding adieu

to the school as it, I overgrew

for schooling higher in a town

initiating many interruptions

from village, my associations

initially on every vacation

and any festive occasion

I used to come spirited

it, the time got it arrested.

Even settled I down

not in my village but in a town.

At these twilight days

increases my craze

to visit my village often

mortal tension, to soften.

Progress of the civilization,

applauses on its fast run,

arguments many in favor

population explosion to counter

making life ease with comfort

it, many such arguments support.

At this old age such logic I cannot vie

but at each sight of village I only sigh.

 

In the evening

villagers fling

to trap fishes

for dining dishes

and to get a drench

tiredness to quench

with light to illuminate

that dazed catches to inflate.

Both banks of river

till the sight can decipher

a necklace of gold indeed

at such sight wonders breed

 

in stormy weather

overflowing flooded river

and pitch darkness around

flashing light from the cremation ground

the pathetic calls to boatman

so frightening, never forget I can

Now bridges across the river

moving vehicle stopping never

lighted cremation ground

no wolf no jackal are found

and no boat or boatman to row

with dry river scanty water flow.

 

The jute cultivation

and its final extraction

in the rotten pond water

where bred mosquitos better

ached my heart as a child then

is its substitute a boon or a bane?

The earthen pot appeared in every form

metalic vessels were beyond wisdom

Coconut leaf as sunner bed

no match to it is an A C shed,

The mini bony fishes caught in tilling land

vanished because of fertilizers now at hand.

The list never ends as I gaze

the stories then, me, still amaze.

 

P K Routray

In the service of Lord