Obsequies Poem by Ravi Panamanna

As he received the cheque
A bird struggled within his ribs.
As he encashed it
He had his umbilical cord cut.

For centuries that ancestral house was a cradle,
Generations lived under her wings.
And as a banyan tree
She served his hamlet for umpteen seasons.

Within her corridors
Life blossomed into timeless dales.
And her living spaces forever echoed-
‘Charity begins at home’.

But in the cycle of time
She was left to forlorn winds.
And for long years, in silence,
She waited for her lost children to return.

And the perching birds were her console,
The peeping moonlight her nightly friend.
And now she is waiting her funeral pyre,
He has performed the last rites.