Nameless Days Poem by Ajit Das

The tree of a week has seven leaves.
The state plucks two, granting
paid holidays to over-worked limbs.

Another leaf falls, when the father
is murdered by the remorseless son
for a job on compassionate ground.

Then the mother works as a maid
until she is shifted to a caring home;
the fourth leaf shrivels, blown away.

The teacher is venerated not so much
as ridiculed for talking of values,
threatened for checking unfair means.

The fifth leaf gone, the sixth clutches
at the branch, but drops as if in shame,
when funeral pyre is booked by graft.

A friend abducts his friend, gets paid
ransom money, yet snaps his lifeline.
The tree has no leaf, stands naked.

Why are days given names of bond?
The outer crust is brittle; it breaks,
revealing the inner face not so tender.

* a discordant note, yet not to be ignored