Black Bat Poem by Chandra sekharan

My happy boyhood days
Spent in my grandparent’s ancestral house
Indelible impressions of life
Playing, playing and playing
With lots of children
Most of them relatives
Pleasure of joint family system
My frequent dream was that of black bat
Flying below joisted and
Deteriorated wooden ceiling
Will cling to ceiling for sometime
Head down looking at children
And children looking up at me
They pelted rolled waste papers
And bits of used pencils at me
Avoiding the attack
I used to encircle below ceiling
Clinging to ceiling and swinging
My friends were furious
Game went on
Inadvertently, something bad happened
During my acrobatics
My wing hit against an old blade
Of rotating and creaking ceiling fan
Fell flat on floor
Unbearable pain of approaching death
Sound of jubilant children’s clapping
Increased my pain
Abruptly I woke up
I was lying amidst
My paternal grand parents
On silky and cushioned bed
My grandma was tightly holding my
Shivering palm
And queried
“what happened dear
You had mischievous laughter for some time
And suddenly started screaming
As though you got injured and suffered”

My dream of myself flying around
As Black Bat happened
About six decades ago
Now I am a septuagenarian
And still those dreams remain as a mystery