Shadow Of The Past Poem by DILIPBHASKER MATHRA

A beggar came at the door step of that old house
He stood and looked up the large obsolete pillars
Shouldering that heavy structure tirelessly.
His glance dragged to the ceiling as if called by
Someone from the top with familiar voice,
But the closed door made him cautious and
Called out for a while to hear if any one’s foot step
Creeping towards the closed door to open.

He grieved and murmured carelessly for a response
From inside where stillness gathered its paramountcy.
He sat on the rusted step to gasp a little and
To resurrect his lost strength and dying spirit.
A long walk of miles in the hot summer
Made his face wrinkled and showed restlessness.

His deep breath developed hasty noise
Against the paradox of a long life’s mystery,
And shrinkage of dubious disclosure of his mind
About the past gone by and the senseless time
That made him a stranger to the house which stood
Before him with its barred doors and desolate grandeur.

He threw his shadow in silence to bind the past
Where he walked like a child holding fast
His father’s hand in that house which never kept closed.
He saw his mother’s face and recognized her
Silken voice of compassion engulfed within affection
That engendered him ineffable bliss and pride.
He heard her soft prayer in the evening before
The lamp lighted infront of Almighty Shiva
Which binds ever the soul to holy intention.

He saw the old moon stood in silence when one day
His mother died and there was a song
In the wind chanting her soul’s departure.
Till to him that is an unforgettable mystery
Which is always beyond the reach of his imagination.
On a long winter dawn when the white frost
Encircled over the ridges, the unfriendly fate
Made a cursed moment for him and his father
To vacate that home and traverse to somewhere
Quite unknown for his tender mind then.

All this was a long time ago, he remembered
in contemplation
and lost the ways and everything somewhere
In the hostile cities and tortuous town like obsession.
Once in the depth of winters’ snow breathed
His father last and galloped away on an
Old white horse to heaven, leaving him alone,
Helpless and half lost then to the rest of life.

And at last he is here to listen that faint voice
From the quietness of the house calling him in
by his name.
He felt at his heart his lost days of childhood.
Though, all are behind a shapeless shadow,
He could recognize that rueing figure in the shadowiness
With tears in her eyes, sobbing silently for
That beggar who is there seated alone to pay his late
Approbation to her and what binds them together is
The everlasting Mother’s love which never perishes.