VALSA GEORGE

 

VALSA GEORGE

 

Bonsai

 

On a sea strand,

Have you watched empty shells

Mercilessly tossed from sea to shore

And from shore to sea

 

Often I shrink and reduce to such a shell,

With jagged and broken edges

Colorless and empty

 

Among many castaways,

I lie half buried under the sand

Waiting for some wave

To wash me away

How tedious is my voyage

Shuttling from father to mother

And from mother to father

Unable to openly confess

Who weighs more

On the balance of preference

 

Through how many alleys and by ways

I have wandered, questioning my identity!

Am I a puffer fish, being toxic

The fisher men have discarded?

Or a jarring note in a discordant symphony?

I wonder! I often ask myself!

 

Destined to grow

In mercurial climes,

Planted in arid shallow soil

With the tap root trimmed,

Branches pruned,

Growth denied,

I, a stunted bonsai!

 

Still I dream to be a towering tree,

That in profusion gives fruits and shade

A midget aspiring to be a Goliath

A hollow reed,

Longing at once to be the singer and the song!

 

An Inspired Poet

 

A weaver of words in deep quiet reflects

In his mind’s prism, many a thought deflects

Within him the rainbow colours of passion rage

He scripts songs of beauty and rhyme on page after page

 

He has no magic, neither erudite nor clever

But hungry souls, his poems avidly devour

Stirring their hearts as wind on whispering leaves

And each line, some alluring fancy weaves

 

As from pen to paper his fancies flow

In a lingua that has an unusual glow

Though a great epic may not be born

His songs move even hearts of flint n’ stone

 

He sings the paeans of love and life

Of men in cross roads of toil and strife

He awakens dead worlds long forgotten

Taking us to magic lands never trodden

 

His songs have echoes of a heavenly rhapsody

Drowning the Earth in flooding melody

Fueling hearts with thoughts one cannot name

Spawning tempestuous passions, one cannot tame

 

Rain And The Exodus

 

The afternoon was excessively humid

The earth seemed a seething hot furnace

Dark clouds were gathering overhead

Lightning drew florescent patterns in the sky

Thunder boomed and rumbled

A few sparse drops of water hit the window pane

The air grew dark, leaves shivered

Soon the rain pelted down in torrents

Drumming on the corrugated tin roofs

 

Spreading a dark curtain between the eye and the sky

It poured down in full fury for about an hour

In no time it flooded the ditches and hollows

But its might slackened and it vanished as quickly

As it had come, like a messenger on an urgent errand

 

The day was dying and I witnessed another rain

The rain of insects into the sequestered freedom of the night

Termites and white ants, sleeping in the hollows

Suddenly emerged from their lairs in thousands

Out of every crack and cranny, every fissure and hole

From under every boulder and brick

Winged termites emerged, fluttering about dreamily

Never knowing they were on their first and last flight

They all flew towards the bright light in the porch

But striking against the concrete ceiling

They fell down one by one, some losing their wings

And creeping on the floor like wounded warriors

A quivering swarm of insects, a clumsily moving mass

 

This was the harvesting time for the geckos

In one and two, the lizards emerged from their hide

Flicking their tail, they stood ready for the catch

With their darting sticky tongue, they began

Devouring the insects, hastily cramming their stomachs

Until they could hold no more

 

When the insects began invading the inner space

I switched off all the lights and went to bed

The cool air and the sonorous but rhythmic chants of the frogs

Put my sleepy eyes into sound slumber

Early morning as I woke up

I saw the porch strewn with filmy wings of the termites

They lay like scattered chaff after the corn has been stored

Also some weak survivors, staggering to their end

 

I thought, to what bleak fate, the exodus of insects

Had taken off on their wings for their maiden flight!

 

The Wind’s Trail

 

humming a soft tune

came down the wind

with airy fingers,

it tousled my hair

rubbing its cold cheeks

on mine, tickling me,

it reeled round

tugging at my skirt

like a naughty kid

and amorously lifting it up

like a lover

like soft tendrils

it coiled all around me

inviting me for a waltz

 

between hushed breaths

and murmured tones

it talked to me endless

whispering sweet nothings

in my attentive ear

 

I felt love pouring down on me

 

I wished to cage it

to enjoy its sweet company

but like an apparition

it disappeared into thin air!

 

I couldn’t follow its trail

but as it passed, I saw

a tumbleweed trembles

far above the ground!

 

VALSA GEORGE

 

VALSA GEORGE is a retired professor from Kerala, India.  After her successful career as a teacher, she took to poetry. She writes on a wide spectrum of topics spanning Nature, Love and Human relations. She has authored over 950 poems which she regularly posts in international poetry websites, reputed journals and literary publications. She has four volumes of poems to her credit- Beats, Drop of a Feather, Rainbow Hues and Entwining Shadows - the latter two available on Amazon.com. One of her poems ‘A Space Odyssey’ has been included in the CBSE syllabus for the 8th grade students in India in the years (2018- 20). Another poem ‘My Fractured Identity’ is prescribed for the undergraduate students (Voyagers) in Philippines.