Lord Of Time, Listen To My Prayer Poem by sundaram chandrakalaadhar

LORD OF TIME, LISTEN TO MY PRAYER.
&
lord of time!
listen to my prayer;
teach me to shed all my burden
of steady accumulation and acquisition;

it weighs me down and crushes my thoughts;
grows my worries, wring my nerves
and trips me down into pits of despair
and hurls me into the tempests of madness;

years ago I started my life with empty hands,
with nothing worthwhile to boast of my own -
shame upon me today-
I have less of living accomodation
than of the stifling stocking space;
how all they invaded and strangled my breath
I am at a loss to divine.

for years on most of them
my fingers have not been laid,
they all remain buried alive everywhere around me
and their silent howls for wings and the light of the day
strangle me during my sleepless hours.
when I harshly decide to discard anyone
it makes a hue and cry,
' no, I am dear and useful
and keep me till the day of reckoning! '

once in a while I unload them
with their thick coats of dirt and dust,
unpack them to unravel the forgotten mysteries
but lack courage and will to discard any
I dust them religiously, stuff them back
and restore them to their hell of infinite wait
I am also sure that almost all of them
would journey to the shop of the scarp dealer
the moments after I say good bye to this world.

o time, the ruthless destroyer,
impart a pinch of your harshness into my soul
to let me part with my acquisitions never put in use.
and all my bundles and bundles of writing and scribbling
let all go weeping into the hungry grind of the oblivion

But excuse me if I keep for myself only two
out of the huge pile of my lifelong treasures -
an oxford dictionary my dad ever referred
and the foggy spectacles my loving mom wore
to have a faint glimpse of me, her fateful son,
who rarely visited her tired bed at her very ripe age.

- - SUNDARAM CHANDRAKALAADHAR