The Green Rose
K. Radhakumar *
Tourists on decorated carts
Drawn by draught horses
On the hot and noisy streets of Kolkata!
The past lives in the present
And the boy in me
Wakes to a blue sky.
The city is suddenly perfumed;
The late afternoon whispers something –
Something I cannot catch.
At another corner of the city
An old couple on a cart
Drawn by a man!
A man
Dark, sinewy and weather beaten;
A man
Who has seen the naked truth of life!
Here beggars survive on
The humanity, the better selves
Of thousands of pedestrians.
The chauffeur driven car
Takes me through many narrow lanes
And there is a man urinating by the roadside
Unmindful of the world
And everything on it.
I look out of the window
The large window
Of the five-star hotel –
A bird is flying.
The figure of a woman is seen
In the doorway of a distant highrise
Silhouetted against the dying light.
Should I read meanings into it?
A view from the window
Ah! This is not the window
On this city
The real Kolkata, throbbing with life.
I only glimpse something on the edge of my vision.
* Poem written by K. Radhakumar which was published at The Sangai Express
This poem was posted on September 05, 2015.
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