Stop: A poem 

This time to touch the flower 

Its pink petals going lilac in the sun 

The water sprinkler wets the ground 

Its pitter-patter mock-rain 

reminds the earth of happier days. 

Time should have wizened us 

like grey sapless twigs combustioned 

by heat-waves aping dancing fairies. 

And the child’s vision turning over 

wisdom like a vessel at the banked well. 

Mind hustles amid the listless thirsty arms 

of the mangoes, their dark crusty barks 

preventing climbers, till less-nimble athletes 

sacrifice their dreams of finding fruit. 

Here the soul encounters a serpent 

twisting out of the hollow of beak-carved branch  

And it says: Go no further! 

The foliage of childhood is too fragile 

to carry the weight of the laden