Juvenile

Once there was a time

When I envied my elder sisters

Who were grown up; elegantly!

I envied nothing but to

Grow like them; quick and elegant,

And, halt when I am grown enough

To remain juvenile ever;

Wishing no death to take me away  

From the motherly abode!

Hanging from my mother’s close hand

As if I feared eagles’ snatch,

Away from her, mother’s care!

I trudged across bridges

To school; I was enrolled then,

To read books, experience school life;

Give every exam

And get passed;

By then I was in adulthood.

Today, everywhere I go

I hear people asking each other’s ‘age’

They ask my age too!

Blatantly!

Against what I had wished—

To be ‘juvenile’ forever—

I realize I’ve become a sister my own,

Of my younger sisters!

It’s amazing to sit and watch—

The passing life—

That moves so gentle like rivers’ flow

And the sun that rises only to set;

Age passes, adding wrinkles

To a laughing face

In his journey from

Womb to tomb;

Palace of birth to inferno of death!

Now,

I wish no one asks me how old I am!

As all existing souls grow old and die,

No fetus remains fetus forever;

No wishes hold true to truths;

Once pushed out of womb,

You are destined to keep walking

And when your legs twist you

You are destined to stop—

Like it or not—

Near the graveyard,

Your indestructible home!

Before me fate hovers

A beam of sun rays can’t illuminate

And fierce storms can’t destroy,

A sharp knife is too blunt to mow

And no human can hide from its fear,  

It befalls on us; good or bad

Nothing can stop it

And it always hovers before us,

‘Yes’ I m talking of ‘fate’. 

Before me fate hovers  

Invisibly in the eternal space  

Or is it sitting next to me?

Guiding me through his wills

Taking me to a place unknown;

  

After life left me alone

With all loveable things abducted;

After losing life in the living;

After being in both hell and heaven;   

After crying my grief out;

After being betrayed by my lover;

I married to ‘fate’

And chose to live by its shadow,

It is years since I eloped with fate.

Sages say fate is an answer to the past calls

What you sow in the past reaps now

I confront many circumstances

Which I believe is my reap

With the versatile fate

I learn to live or live to learn  

And walk to end.