Shattered (?) Dream Of A Budding Poet Poem by Swatimalya Chattopadhyay

At the age of twenty five
She discovered her skill
Started writing poetries
With tremendous zeal.

Her pen ran throughout
Like a turbulent flow
Inspirations of relatives
Made her face glow.

She started sending poems
To different journals
All of her initial attempts
Met refusals.

She did not give up
And went on trying
Till she came off
With colours flying.

She then heard about
On-line poetry contests
Wanted to submit poems there
To prove herself best.

'Name, fame, lucrative prizes'
Her thoughts went on
Some poetry must come out
Which should stay on.

Her mind became a search-engine
Of some themes or others
She was on constant look-out
For suitable words.

One day while driving the car
She was daydreaming
As if she had won the contest
And the whole world was felicitating.

Dashed the car against a lamp-post
Accident became fatal
Finally she could survive
With the sacrifice of vision in the hospital.

Her blind days remind her
Of one Aesop's fable
The story is about a milk-woman
Whose milk-pail became unstable.

The milk-woman had daydreamed
And dropped the milk-pail.
The budding poet ruffles her mind
'Do imaginative humans fail? '

Thoughts again creep through her mind,
'Though the milk-woman could not fulfill her ambition
But at least God was kind
She did not lose her vision'.

At last the poet derives her strength
With the thought of John Milton
Clasping her poetry note-book
Resolves, ' I must go on.'

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