Learn To Share O Bleeding Hearts Poem by Aniruddha Pathak

A long row of border pillars, all mean,
Wound thro' thickets and farms on sandy track,
White-washed, each bearing a number in black,
Like suture-marks on earth's unfolding skin!

But none of them planted are to unite,
Dividing lives they upraise red ripples,
Dissecting land that was ere seamless quite,
But culture, common tongue once fused peoples.

As was its fate, underneath a pillar
A sprawling Peepal did spread wings in space,
A tree born off a single bird dropping;
Perhaps it could stand no more stone's grey face!

And yet, the bird sauntered there O from where?
Harvested, whose seeds it happened to eat?
None could tell, nor any a soul did care,
With disdain do birds man-made borders beat.

Nourished by common soil the tree grew well,
Mocking at stone pillars from kindred dust—
And man-made marks sacrificing for life
O stood witness to split borders unjust.

No soldier that watched borders had the heart
To sack the sapling, much less a grown hunk;
None thought of replacing back the pillar,
Many scrawled their stray thoughts on its vast trunk.

The Peepal tree flourished, the tree of life,
Which, as the scriptures say aught severed be;
Poor stone-pillar post, getting sacrificed,
It stood teaching tenets of unity.

It still stands cooling borders on each side,
And tempers too that restless in mind dwell,
We know, trees tie up when borders divide,
Mother earth too wants that peace should prevail.

What learned men failed to do a bird did,
Winged feathers for no ink-made borders care;
The bird, a true angel of peace indeed,
Ah ensured, bleeding hearts must learn to share.
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This piece takes off from true happenings on Indo-Pak border at Suchetgarh. In an allegoric reference, Peepal tree represents a mundane world of desires as per Indic philosophy (Bhagavad-Gita # 15.3) .
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Happenings | 04.02.11 |