A Drink of Life

While I sat picturing a piece of the sweet past –
Afraid I was lest something should my dreams wash –
The eyes creaked and the present barged in on my fancy and me.
Now I am what nobody would like to be.

I don’t see what the fuss is about – why!

Nothing has no love, and so have I

Your love, when away,

Sends you, too, far away –

For you are then alone

Without the company of your own.

Hate me as much as you can

But I don’t know how to forget you.

Do not come quite too close

The magnet is terribly strong.

The weather this winter was brutal –

Snows, heavy hail and the frozen sky –

If not for the warmth of your love,

I wouldn’t have survived.

The world will greet you with a smile

If on your lips you yourself have a smile.

A crying baby seldom anyone bears;

There’s no room in the eyes for tears,

Just sit down before me

And let me look into you

As for the talks,

Later to myself I will do.

Each smile you give adds a new moment to my life

Your callous indifference, meanwhile, takes away a day.

If you really love me, let me see you smiling.

I am busy loving

They peer at me

As though I am doing nothing.

Deep is the sense of silence.

If only you could descend.

If there would be no charm

Of returning home in the evening,

Nor would the flowers of my garden form

A smile for me in the morning –

My world would then be the world of a man

Who holds it in contempt.

Lend me a smile, I’d just as soon.

I want to buy myself the moon.

Yonder looks a lake of sweet water.

Its waves leap like a heart stimulated by a deep love.

I looked and lo! They sing a note of forbidden friendship.

Ah, my throat is scorching; my mouth dry;

My steps are effortful to run like; in a dreadful dream,

The dreamer try to escape from the approaching death.

Perhaps I am chasing a mirage.

May be, I am.

It is still something of divine.

I am in wait but I clearly do not know what for.

My cell phone rings and soon dies,

Leaving a number on the screen.

Every particle of my body gets shaken

As I see a face even in that number.

May I call back?

No, no, I have no word to say,

Though there are heaps and heaps of things to impart with,

Besides I fear doing so.

Then the same waiting process begins again

And keeps moving on minute by minute.  

-          Ramesh Tiwari