Friday, November 20, 2009

STAGES OF PARTING


What Is Left ?
What is left
- the last bitter dreg
when love evaporates,
sympathy has gone,
empathy is forgotten,
listening is a lost art,
mutual respect is on its last leg.
What is left ?


What is left
is probably the next day,
asking for a good night’s sleep,
a few hours of blessed relief,
yearning for peace,
a respite from wrangling,
the soul’s cry for hope !
Hope is all
that is left !!


Nothing Is Left !
Hope, tiny flickering lamp,
a small tremulous flame
cupped by the palms -
the urge to live on.
The pitiful light disappears
into the black hole
of well nursed hatred.
When hope rebounds
from the stony walls
of hopelessness.


Nothing is left.
When civility meets derision,
logic shatters against pet dogma,
openness confronts a closed mind, exploration meets foregone conclusion
contrition recoils from mockery.
Nothing is left.
The mirror of mutuality shatters,
shards of glass scatter,
two sets of bloodied footprints
lead to two different directions,
a relationship dies,
but for memories
nothing is left,
nothing is left,
nothing !


After parting
Paths lead to different ways.
People look back , sometimes,
from hilltops of lost individuality,
precious; that they had wanted
so badly to reclaim, what they thought
had been lost in the daily grind of marital strife.
They see smoke rising
from the hearth of the broken home
and there standing,
the product of the union,
the unwitting victim of the parting,
the child
lost, bewildered, not able to take sides.


Patching up
Hesitant footsteps return
the mood is sombre.
The truce almost fragile,
liable to shatter with one false note,
a veritable minefield.
The tableau reminiscent of courting,
deja vu with a difference.
Formal, feeble jokes, inhibited jollity.
In the darkness,
a hesitant hand creeps ahead
searching, seeking warmth
from once familiar terrain.
Grudging acceptance
search for lost rhythms
known-unknown-trying to know again
familiar-unfamiliar-refamiliar
found-lost-found again.
A modicum of peace.


New status quo
Peace returns
to the domestic Bosnia,
albeit temporarily.
The child wears the blue helmet
of the UN Peacekeeper,
powerless to impose.
Watching, waiting, watching,
waiting......,
wondering,
hoping, hoping
hoping against hope that
peace has returned for good.
Happy that it is peaceful
at least for the time being.
Savouring the peace
one day at a time.

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