I Am Not Homeless
She haunts me all the time
I close my eyes
And her battered image
Looms large before me…
Unkempt hair, soiled clothes
An eerie, emaciated figure
Always at the bottom of stairs
Sweeping the floor with her stole.
Always cleaning…
Cleaning the dust from the footwear
Kept outside the Sikh temple,
I visit sometimes.
Never does she enter
To pay obeisance
Never does she miss that, though
Never pays attention
As she rubs her forehead
At the bottom of the stairs
Again and again…
A thousand times, it seems.
I look at her each time
A thought reverberates…
Who is this lady?
Why is she so desperate?
I sit at the bottom of stairs
To attract her attention
She looks at me
With empty expression!
I muster all the courage
To ask: are you homeless?
She muttered, under her breath
“I have two sons!”
© Balroop Singh. (2010)
She haunts me all the time
I close my eyes
And her battered image
Looms large before me…
Unkempt hair, soiled clothes
An eerie, emaciated figure
Always at the bottom of stairs
Sweeping the floor with her stole.
Always cleaning…
Cleaning the dust from the footwear
Kept outside the Sikh temple,
I visit sometimes.
Never does she enter
To pay obeisance
Never does she miss that, though
Never pays attention
As she rubs her forehead
At the bottom of the stairs
Again and again…
A thousand times, it seems.
I look at her each time
A thought reverberates…
Who is this lady?
Why is she so desperate?
I sit at the bottom of stairs
To attract her attention
She looks at me
With empty expression!
I muster all the courage
To ask: are you homeless?
She muttered, under her breath
“I have two sons!”
© Balroop Singh. (2010)
I call myself a realist though most of my poetry rides on the wings of imagination. I know realism is boring and harsh; modern writers have almost abandoned it but it is ironic that this hypocritical world cannot do away with realities of life that stand before us every single day. However hard we may try to escape them, we can’t eliminate them.
Inspired from a real life incident, I wrote the above poem to calm the turbulent emotions within me. My culture nurtures and upholds strong family values. Anyone who doesn’t respect and care for a parent is looked down upon; the responsibility is often handled by sons but daughters too have taken up this task since they are becoming economically independent and traditionalism is giving way to modernization.
I call myself a realist though most of my poetry rides on the wings of imagination. I know realism is boring and harsh; modern writers have almost abandoned it but it is ironic that this hypocritical world cannot do away with realities of life that stand before us every single day. However hard we may try to escape them, we can’t eliminate them.
Inspired from a real life incident, I wrote the above poem to calm the turbulent emotions within me. My culture nurtures and upholds strong family values. Anyone who doesn’t respect and care for a parent is looked down upon; the responsibility is often handled by sons but daughters too have taken up this task since they are becoming economically independent and traditionalism is giving way to modernization.
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