Daughters, sent away

And there are no cries
beyond the usual tone
on the call with her mother.
Occasionally, there are tears
and vain attempts
to chip away sadness
into an invisible form.

Years, they harden.
In love and in hate.
They give way to children.
Growing symbols of stifled freedoms.
They are loved and cared for
as an escape from the routine
and in a hope for change.

The Materialist

To pay for the trouble he was
in his previous life
he emerges from the recycle bin of death.
He walks time and again
taking all possible forms.
At least once in the merry-go-round
he would have eaten his own kind.
Rebirth as un-evolved creatures
doesn't teach him to repent
for the wrongs he has done.
Like a tragedy, he fails everyone
and traverses wantonly in the survival chart.

Those others-yes,
there are always others-
who escaped the throw into the bin
lie low like un-picked litter.
No fun for them.
Never mind.
Their's is a skewed trajectory all their lives.

Another poem about life

Life is a perennial myth
that filters through time
and arrives at our doorstep
with an early morning thud
of a thick newspaper.
The scientific of the minds
would pause
might even take a long pause
and wonder about it.
It is a chain of random events
A stack of delicate dominoes.
Everyone agrees.
But what is close to you and
what has formed you
has already solidified.
Nothing random about it.
It has a name, a belonging now.
Pose a question: What is life?
And there will be answers flying
like frisbees in a mad playground.
The popular ones challenging
everything else and the stronger ones
trying to outdo at least once.
What is its purpose?
This question alone makes up
some of our best and worst moments.
It is told and retold
Assured and reassured
Planned water tight.
But after all this
we would ask ourselves what it is.
And there is silence
with a clock ticking away.
It does keep time
but evades our questions.

Fallen apart

With thick cement holding promise
stones were placed half a century ago
One over the other to make it a home.
Given in now to the onslaught of time
the wooden beams are bent without duress
and creak gently in the ensuing wind.
Don't stand there, I am warned.
They can just jump on to you for support.
As it seems, fate has played a clenched fist
destroying another childish construction on its shore.
One after another, the habitants have left home
preserving a continuity about what is human.
Head of the house, dead long ago.
Daughters, married off to the distance
Warring sons, separated.
Moving on and moving apart.
And the mother is left behind.
Living on little and living little
amidst a violent time
that is weeding out
the remnants of her home.