Into the salty surging of the tide
The mighty great ball of fire at fore
Was plunging into the Nadir with a sigh.
About me revelled the melange of
The town that I call very mine
And by one side was a man preened at best
And on the other a girl in tatters high.
Everywhere I looked amid
The laughters and the cries
Disparity caused me to despair
At God's very able jokeful lie.
Some there born into a thatched hut
Some calling palaces their homes from birth,
All at best wetting and betting the same
Upon the sands of time, that very dirt.
Time has never stopped to grace the goodness
Into a Pagan's blood and a King's forty bones,
Time is in the rudiments of the here and now
A sagacious tale of those that have won.
And yet what causes the peaks and troughs
Of destiny's way forward, I gazed and asked
As about me ran about children as horses
And horses as they were whipped and bound.
Is there any redemption yet for that man
Who has lost all his fortunes in a game?
Is there a prize in heaven for that laywoman
Who has beat ordeals, peaked mountains all the same?
This one life, the greatest gift
Holds all the bounties at a whiff,
And yet we may cry, Is there a second chance?
Is there laughter for the sniffs?
Could I sneak a peek into the future?
Could I very surely know
Which way will the waves take me hence
And am I prepared for the show?
That one virtue that the Sages omit
In the sermons came calling as a lark
And a voice within or may be without
Said, "Patience is all I ask."
And there about as I nurse the saplings
Of my desires with thoughts, words and deeds
I summon the wait, I wait for the door to open
As life serves me more than my needs.
One may water the seedlings,
Tend to the fledglings
But at last it is Nature's call
On who will rise and who will fall.
-- Doel Sengupta
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