QUIETUDE

 

QUIETUDE

 

Revolted enough in life addicted,

Drank to the brim modernity read,

Collected books immersed studied,

Awestruck rustic life disbelieved too,

Is it that cities remain awake night long,

Tall towers kissing the sky illuminated,

Hundreds of floors of people work at night,

Earn wealth in single life, a village fail,

Jaws open lost between lines dreamed,

Illiterate class three quit school turn laborer,

Worked in the field cultivation harvest,

Carried bags of paddy to mills paid up,

A few clothes, a clay hut, twice rice cooked,

Illness withered with fever and cold,

Sleep with cloth covered without food,

A few days after the fever remission,

Curious moved to a nearby city for work,

Got a job at a construction site day long,

Payment is enough for two meals a day,

A tin shed few clothes water bucket,

Watch during night streets lighted,

Traffic busy occasionally get empty,

The high-rise buildings illuminated,

Windows lighted, twinkled from a distance,

The skyline is an unreal different world,

Daytime found people like machines,

Scantly look at strangers talk little,

Move quickly, catch the bus, train, vanish,

The rush at late evening matching,

Unfriendly keep distance from laborers,

Interaction, harsh, blunt, and short,

Repulsive attitude acquired fear them,

Rich people look at our dress shrink,

Questioned once a young person,

He looked at me surprised and laughed,

Bewildered at his answer, unfit illiterate,

What a fool you seek friends in the city,

Educate yourself to get a job by car home,

Put on a polished, costly dress, talk nicely,

Get on with your life entangled with pal,

They gossip, share rumors, chat a lot,

Mind your pocket get empty quickly,

Learn your mistake, keep aloofness,

Wiser by now, multiply money fast,

This is a great city to sing for men,

Less they remember you, laborers,

Required to build buildings road,

Push out of the city crowd in a slum,

Watch how the city repents crowds,

Sick, hungry, cheats migrating,

Listening to him attentively to my language,

Thinks about the booked read earnestly,

The fifth class I read in the village can read,

Felt proud to read a book tagged illiterate,

Here children study at university,

Unheard in village education in detail,

That was a sock of my life back home,

Bewitchingly beautiful nature,

The fool moon, grain field watchman,

Alone in the field paddy, has ripened,

Yellow paddy plants swaying to and fro,

Moonlight under the grain field golden,

Distant is a village I stay awake bewildered,

The city was my life as a laborer, and here,

The peace, calmness, happy beatitude,

Found, belongs to the rapturous quietude. 

 

Pen: Bijayananda Mishra

Title of Poem: Quietude

Themes: A rustic found belongs to nature

Written: 17th July 2023, Cuttack

@ Copywrite.