Death: 'From not being yourself'

Perfect Poet Award, Week 57


In the far corners of different streets lay two closed houses
One fine day you knocked on mine..and I on yours
We both opened them with creaking hesitancy
Just to let in some fresh air perhaps…

But then, with the suddenness of realization
Of happiness unfamiliar..the doors closed on us
Society had of course ordered-
Be X..be Y..be Z
But never be you

The closed doors remained closed forever
In the pungent smell of decay..
And goodness coated with maturity
The smell then turned to poison

One day when each of us had died
Of good manners, maturity and society
And wrapped ourselves in the incense of the heavens ..

We wished
We had died of being ourselves..


© 2011 Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury

Image courtesy http://www.gaylecurry.com/100paintings/karenorr/ko_painting21.html

When we are young, wild and carefree,

Little do we think of what will be. . .

Maybe when we are each eighty or eighty-three!

In the beautiful and sing song journey of cocoon to butterfly

No one thinks of the times that fly

Once while on one such walk,

The walk of introspection I call it-

My eyes chanced upon a moment of frailty,

His was a gait of cautious steps,

Oh so careful, of a life bound together,

The little eyes, in a crinkled smile, spoke of the dream and all the fun. . . Of wishes unfulfilled and goals yet to achieve,

Of the forlorn saga of being branded old.

Why do we imagine the old always as old?

Haven’t they danced or run or been bold?

Why are Grannies always just so…

Let’s look into their eyes and let their story unfold.

For all those old, yet young at heart, we meet and then forget,

Lets remember the eternal song of young hearts and old minds..

And then let’s dance to the joy of such tunes, offbeat yet bold

Listen to their stories, without any goal,

Just the feeling of experiencing an age, of grey hairs and steps

That seem hard to control ..

Lets just once all of us be a bit old,

And feel their journey together and as a whole

© Maitreyee Bhattacharjee Chowdhury

( Image courtesy Google)