Dr. Ravindra Pratap Singh
(Indian Poet and Eminent Dramatist)
(Indian Poet and Eminent Dramatist)
Professor of English
Department of English and Modern European Languages,
University of Lucknow, India.
The solitude so often
drags my thoughts
and you fondly mark your presence .
I put my queries and note
to change the tone.
Why do you slide the ‘no’,
what happens to you , so?
I want to hear my premature days,
want
to know your labour,
your workings and pain,
the losses you remit
and the gains you gained.
Why the dove comes on sight
there it, flutters the wings
and goes?
Why the betel leaves
make a chain , with a fragrance ,
and mirage
in rail ,
and the queries swell to erode …?
Why the Sun remains your eulogizing image
whenever I seek some rays
in radiance ?
Why the dashes appear in phrase
to make just prejudiced compounds,
and a father dons the scene
the question still unanswered .
I want to hold you firm,
yes ,very firm
my father,
as I did , giving you
your last bath ...
I want to observe
yes , want to observe
your face
your paling face ,
want to feel
your pulse
want to glean:
a
sigh
a pulse
a movement
of your limbs
anything whatsoever.
I want, again, to hold you
and curiously ask
the questions –
your losses
and gains ,
your aspirations
and pangs .
....
You are dead , dear ,
now no more .
Your body decomposed.
May I hear ,
may I see you somewhere
in my dying decade
you in youth
and I grown old.
Yes, why not
you taught me Geeta
I recall,
a little child
I laying on your hairy chest .
I recall you did it.
You did it , when I lost my grandpa
and you your father,
and the same when after your mom’s rituals.
I growing splice I see
on the dried up trunk ,
yes the tree in our courtyard .
It is the chain
the chain of being ,
the old giving way
for the new to move.
Your notes for my daughter
your scripts and tone
I record .I record it all
my father decomposed
some six feet
under this happening earth .