When we meet

When We meet.

P K Routray

At this threshold of exit when we meet

forget we our age, when  each other we greet

with naughty smiles and unspellable yells of a teen,

spouses in between are set aside as if unseen.

Memories many and feelings funny then peep in me.

Painted with pleasure and pathos thoughts flee

on our golden days with its ornaments at twenty,

scrollimg cruelly “ What will happen till we reach eighty,”

“Will it continue with health and spouse till and beyond ninety

buderning none, not needing round the clock a nurse,

capable of thinking, walking talking seeing with spouse and cash in purse?”

Pass across the memory lane friends from best student Samant to the best actor Senapati

thirty-six of them leaving us and their spouses and off springs with apathy.

Peep in me teenager friends of whom we have not heard since then

and friends who are too busy with their consorts brushing aside their classmates from memory lane.

Here is a thought on the scene of a recent meet.

 Being a  probable solution to me it looked sweet.

Lo! I beheld friends- lions in their teens limping with joint pain

spouses of many joining them with same agony and walking in strain.

Elated I was, when I saw friends energetic smiling even with limping organs

Lord I thank Thee. Their acts confides me “They will last ages with their passions.”

Danced in me many tales fantasy and real pricking me to ponder

for friends with varied aches, achievements, inner peace and laughter,

for friends unlucky to miss their dear consorts and the spouses for our departed friends.

Fifty years hence from those joyful days have taken its toll with its grievous bends.

At our seventy with grandkids have time to spare to share their fun with us

after they outgrow, with their parents for us they will grow callous.

our burden of old age will weigh heavier day by day on our loving offspring

better let us prepare ourselves to save them and spare them with our blessing.

Then the joy and smile I saw in the faces of all friends and their companions in the meet

“Hey Lord! Thank you the solution to my worries. Here are your blessings to this fleet.”

Danced they, sang they, fought they, gossiped they with teenagers zeal

joined their spouses with same spirits as if in the hostel with their consorts’ feel.

( N. B -We are classmates residing together for five years while reading engineering in REC Rourkela Orissa from 1965 to1970. we were two hundred fifty. some of us we meet with our spouses. This is my feeling expressed.)