Tongue and Tooth

Tongue and Tooth
P K Routray
Edited By: P.Gaan

Man has many limbs and many organs,
For man’s health and happiness each has to perform its own assigned functions.
Man hardly bothers to take their regular care,
Hence most of the times, one has to pay for doctors’ share.
But from among them tongue and tooth are most peculiar,
They force the man to take their daily care.
If ever they get neglected they give foul smell,
Result is a social boycott and the life becomes a woeful hell.
As per the theory of evolution.
From animal is man’s creation.
Teeth and tongues are animals’ main organ of action,
They eat; drink and for all purposes use them as their main weapon.
Man has not forgotten to pay his ancestors his gratitude,
Hence for them man has a daily duty as a mark of servitude.
There exists a clan on the earth, who never cleans the tongue as their usual habit,
They count the age from the layers of dirt deposited on it.
Tongue comes when a man is born,
After ten months tooth comes one by one.
When the child starts babbling,
Tooth has to come for guarding.
At the age of eight, when appears complexity in the child,
Stronger teeth come forward in place of the soft and mild.
Subsequently more teeth have to come out,
as less number perhaps will fail to control the tongue for its oft repeated journey out.
God knew it for certain,
Tongue will become wicked
when the man is grown.
Man loses his teeth when he becomes old,
because to amuse their grand children, many tales are to be told.
Once old age comes the thought of life on the other world makes a man to worry,
Hence without teeth for better afterlife freely and fearlessly tongue can sing loudly His glory.
To hide our old age we fix artificial teeth,
Paint our hair, graft the limbs and moisturize our skin but old age peeps from beneath.
But for chewing harder food,
Tongue has to labor hard and feel the absence of his friend for good.
Tooth comes later and goes earlier,
Signifying that with flexibility a thing lasts longer.
The birth, growth, rebirth and decay of teeth have purpose behind them,
To measure the increase in wisdom and complexity,
the change of phase of tooth is an emblem.
The first set of teeth are very naughty, they trouble the mother while sucking her milk,
Now the mother’s woe is over as the baby has to chew the nipple of bottled milk.
Tongue can be sweet and bitter,
Without taking care of our own tongue, we expect the other’s tongue to be sweeter.
Tooth acts as prison wall,
At times teeth bite tongue to remind its power and to tell tongue to behave small.
Taste by tongue tempts a man to eat more and more,
All sense organs have similar tastes; hence need increases further and further
Tongue has many muscles and nerves but is devoid of bones,
Tooth has no flesh and no blood but made of bone and bone alone.
Sweet tongue and laughing teeth create heavenly kingdom,
Bitter tongue and hidden teeth create enmity and are never welcome.
When tooth and tongue work in harmony,
With sound health and good thoughts, sweet words come out as if pouring nectar like honey.
Chewing of betel leaves and tobacco makes both tongue and teeth dirty,
For health they are not good and also deteriorate one’s beauty.
Health of society and health of man are made or marred by tongue and teeth,
One should guard them and guide them to enable us to get the best benefit.
Man at times puts ornaments on teeth either to hide the damage or to increase their beauty,
Tongue has nothing to put on but for its beauty it should always remain sweet at its duty.
Tooth speaks seldom,
But when sounds, it brings anger raising a hailstorm.
Tongue takes help of teeth and vocal cord to speak,
But can produce some funny sound with help of palate for creating gimmick or trick.
There are many novel uses of tongue and teeth by man in his day to day life,
Examples are use of both for expression of love and anger, tooth as a tool for extraction of nails, and at times as a substitute to knife.
Poet sees black colored man’s smile as a necklace of dazzling pearls or the display of petals of a white lotus in their compose,
And a tongue peeping in between painted lips appear as the petal of a red rose.