WHAT IS LIFE? : SONNET 186

Is your life different, if you're a king,

From the life of one who is living a peasant
If life is other than how one is living--

With pains or pleasure, with riches or wants?

But life for us is what our living does mean,

So our lives are not what our ancestors' were,

Nor same the elderly's as that of children;

What else than birth and death do we all share?

Earth's all microbes, animals, birds, plants;

What do our lives o'er theirs then justify?

And if by life diverse from them are humans,

Then why do we kill us more than we die?

The taller ever in me gets the questioner,

As life on Earth goes longer, deeper, denser.

-- N P Samal

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I DO CRY : SONNET 59

I cry, I do cry breathless like a baby. You notice me or not but I do cry -- Whole drown'd in tears -- be it night or day it be -- No care if you find me absurd and wry. But I can't be unfair to cry, or vague If crying can protect me from strokes of death That nothing else on earth can, though I beg With my bowl'd palms held heavenward in good faith. Yes, I do cry (Whoe’er on earth will not With the betrayer's dagger stabb'd in heart?), But know my tears will flow all through the drought And grow new plants of love ere life does part. Maybe to kill the fatal pain the heart bears, Come out generously life-giving tears. -- N. P. SAMAL

TELL ME NOT

Tell Me Not Tell me not I was once a lad; An open sky that I once had, That offered me untold delight And lit my spirit day and night. Remind me not the days and nights That told me tales and flew my kites; Many a game that I did play With heart and soul unleashed and gay. Jog not my memory I once sailed Alone for miles and there beheld On either side, along the inlet, Many a willow and flowery thicket. Bring me not back the rights all lost, All things that came by free of cost; Affection, love, all poured on me, Even when I was wilful, naughty. I'm in my time, leave me to suffer From weakness, bloating, bugs, whatever: Let me be in my dying yard; But tell not I was once a lad. -- N P Samal

THE RETURN : RHYME 100

Infants gambol about their home With blooms and toys, But they return to mom's bosom For the real joys. Children frolic about the streams, In meads and hedges, But to their home they return for Their real flowerage. Youths do rush about crazy for World's whole treasure, But they return for real living To own life and career. Adults get sunk into the labour With dedication, But this's the return to raise well Their own children. The old trudge about the yard Of their nursing shed, But lastly they return for rest To their death bed. -- N. P. SAMAL

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