The Woodland And The Village Shepherd Poem by Mohabeer Beeharry

When I was a child,
Strolling down my village woodland
a world of reality and of fantasy, flowers
And rowdy streams and little perils, was an addiction.

A place that at once thrilled
and awed me,
As I gazed down from the top of the slope
towards endless sprawling valleys.

whimper in terror at the sight of those spooky groves of bamboos,
Hollow like haunted tunnels,
They squealed and whined, swayed and roared in the winds,
A place of fearsome memories
Untouchable at night.

There was then that wise looking shepherd.
Think of an extraordinary figure loitering about the bushes in bloom
His stick across his shoulders,
His face rough and deeply sunburnt,

A head scarf negligently sheltering his face from the sun,
Followed by a herd of white goats
And you have him, the spirit of the woodland,
An indelible part of a throbbing mosaic.

Now forty years later
He is still inspiring my poetry.
He and his flock are still vivifying lines of my writing.

At the sounds of his flute,
the hills exploded into an unsurpassable gaiety
Passing birds, stunned, responded in beautiful choirs
wayward streams flowed in awe, silent
And lightness eased the stifling heat.

He was part of a pleasant landscape
Embellished with hills, clear sky and mountains,
colours of the sun set and fast shifting clouds
And those haunting plaints of pigeons, crazily in love.

The end of the day could find him anywhere
Dozing on the ground, his goat chewing the cud near-by
Or near the old cemetery at the foot of the hill
Even like Pan sitting on the top of one of the huge rocks
On the river bank.

He was a piece of the shelve of the woodland
That changed not as to where things were,
But as to where he was.