The Night Vigil Poem by Mohabeer Beeharry

Around me the village is quiet.

Stunned, the trees and the hills wait,
Lonely, someone is missing,
His joyful ebullience and his love!

And the wait gets more tedious and tearful
Those sounds of morning footsteps may never come again.
Life has become a scare!
A nightmare,
Maybe a retribution!

And death?
A rowdy and gorging predator!
An insatiable dark monster!

Am I going to wake up the next day?
Like the fabled falls of ripe fruits,
Humanity disintegrates, slowly.
Faith cries as dusts collect in the holy places,
Uncertainty and fear in our hearts.

Whoever dares, continues to live,
With death as bedfellow,
Keeps the light of night vigil on
A febrile hope in his heart.

Still there have been beautiful days before,
Full of aureate sunshine.
The day has never ceased to break
Nor the beauty of the sun to embellish
the wonders of this place.

Caught in darkness many a time
Man's head had bent before,
In hopelessness.

But from the ash of dismay, like the Phoenix
had never failed to rise again,
Refurbished and fortified,
new vigour and new determination.

It is easy to die
Or to end a life.
But It takes grit and mettle to live,
And mount new visions,
Far more strength and endurance to sustain the tension
On the bow of life.
Meet then the test with a smile!