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Mainstream, VOL LVIII No 48, New Delhi, November 14, 2020

Evening Thoughts | L K Sharma

Friday 13 November 2020

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by L K Sharma

They said this was HIS way
of saving HIS Planet!
By killing HIS people?
 
It looked promising in
the bright morning.
The window encased
clear green and sky blue.
 
The scene unclouded
by human smoke.
Bird songs, clear and
distinct, unmixed
by human noise.
Roads unsullied by
dirty human feet.
Stillness, undisturbed
by human movement.
 
Dance of Death stopped.
The world rid of its
domineering species
and its ceaseless chatter
and endless clutter.
 
Not a soul, ugly or
beautiful, in sight.
No humans, drunk
or steady, walk
upon the earth.
No door is open.
No noise is heard.
 
The koel sings
from a tree top.
Little birds conduct
their orchestra.
 
A peacock family
majestically crosses
a lonely road. A deer
has left its habitat and
taken to the road.
 
The evening falls.
There is no light.
No longer bright.
Turned dismal,
depressing and
menacingly quiet.
 
For a little while,
we do enjoy silence.
Tuned to noise, we
cannot bear silence
for too long.
 
For a change, we love
a remote hilly spot
that enables us to
escape the noisy city.
But soon we crave
to run away from
there and return to
the familiar Hell.
Distance unbearable.
Isolation becomes
a term in jail.
 
Never satisfied,
never fulfilled.
Ever fearful.
 
The same this evening.
Where have all humans
gone? Will they return
or have gone forever?
 
Birds, birds, birds!
Will they take over
the world? Like
the bees in the
Hitchcock film.
 
What do I do?
To wait or not
to wait. To come
alive in the
familiar Hell.
 
The evening should go.
Let the sankranti kal,
in-betweenness end.
Let the night come.
Let darkness envelope
me, envelope all.
We are nothing in
the light. We shall
be nothing in
darkness. Stillness
is too much with me.
Let dogs come out to
roam and howl on
the road.
 
Shatter the unnerving
silence, end my
unending isolation.
 
I should have dinner,
wash my hands twice,
make a call, reach out
for the record player
to play the Ode to Joy.
 
That will get me ready to
meet my dreamy self and
to lie awake in the night.
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