Astray Poem by Pradip Chattopadhyay

Your paths shouldn’t lead astray

Heard it since childhood day
Heard it along all the way
What it means don’t know to this day.

It doesn’t show the way nor lifts the haze
Of a delusional journey the morality’s maze
Just a vague notion planted from the birth
Astray a wrong way is not a travel’s worth.

And that’s the dilemma all the trouble’s root
Astray the wrong way should not be one’s route
But each path has on offer its own unique view
Sublime obnoxious but stretched out for you.

Don’t I need to break shackles and explore
The way called astray what it has in store
How bad are its tracks uncouth unclean
If they are laden with only vices and sin.

Why not one day break out of shell
See if astray leads only to hell
Take chance of a choice to get away from the pain
Of the ways thought right but ashtray like vain.