Glass Poem by Somali Mukherjee

Last night, I came to know
From my father's age-old experience
That every human life is like a glass:
Full of uncountable scratches at close sight,
Though, from a distance, each looks even to all.
It is not our fault, as we don't
Have proximity enough which makes us find
Others' so good to know
And imagine with perpetual sense
Of warmth, love---to smoothly run and then pass
The barricade with utmost will and might.
At first, they, too, were humble and ordinary like us,
Whose lives we never think to be arduous like ours,
That takes so much agony, struggle and strength.
Yes, I mean the celebrities,
Whose lives are originally full of painful sojourns,
Which we just can't see from afar;
So, though those lives appear to be full of comfort,
They are not so….
They just go on
With lots of hardships, to be one day cool
To us, always, for ever -
And each of those lives just warns
Never to weep, nor to be full of subdued sobs,
But always to perform all our duties,
To persevere and not to yield to hurdles;
To glow with the brilliance of glass.