Arrears Of Love Poem by Bernedita Rosinha Pinto

Man walks ahead in time
forgetting those who enhanced his life:
from the milkman, to the grocer
from the bus driver to the teacher
from the policeman to the lawyer,
from the doctor to the priest
everyone contributed his part
to promote man's progress and survival.

Man keepswalking on the pavement
of achievements and success,
man keeps struggling over the ruthlessness
of disappointment and distress
yet so many people keep helping him
to move on to another yardstick of happiness
as every single day dawns with new
ventures and adventures.

Between the mother and her child
between the son and his father
between the brother and his sister,
relationships start to fall in a disarray
when each one strides into new positions of life.

The track of commitments keeps changing
as responsibilities and obligations keep surmounting:
as sons turn into fathers,
as fathers turn into grandfathers
as daughters turn into mothers and grandmothers,
the past lies forgotten
like an old book on a dusty shelf atop a cupboard.

Every morsel of food he ate
from hands known and unknown,
every word he spoke or made others to listen
every sentence he wrote and made others to read
entrapped him into connections so extensive.

Yet man never keeps a record
of all those who enabled him
to reach his end of life
while on this earth he lived
thus forgetting to pay arrears of love
to those who helped him feed himself and his family
to those who helped him win
and collect his gains over his losses
to those who helped him discard his defeats
and enjoy his victories
to those who shared their love with him,
to those who taught him to embrace peace
and maintain social harmony.

And as time and age
keeps rushing man to his end of life,
unpaid, unrewarded, unnoticed
remain those many arrears of love
which man forgets as circumstances override
and propel him not to re-assess his gains
as the pains and hardships he encounters
as the challenges and obstacles he faces
take him roughly over many waves of jeopardy
that intervention of death provides him a final solace.