Poem 6 
From Book-I: the Sequence “Mizoram-2004”

 

HEROISM

And then the brother has to do something.
He has to decide
and he has to take a decision.
A bold one.

He has already twisted the history of mankind
at the flick of his finger,
he has already made the centipedes and deer
cut through the glassy sheens,
made the amoeba and algae
slither out of the glassy sheen,
and now what remains to be done?
For the God or the demi-God or dummy-God?

And then the big brother has to act.
He has to act big
as a mediator
between the big mother and the small brother.
Between the bouts of compassion
gone awry
and the churlishness
groping for outlandish masks.
But what can the God do?

He has to balance himself.
That is also an act.
He askews his eyes,
protrudes forward his newly mushrooming whiskers,
not whiskers, more than whiskers,
he has to twist his neck.
To balance all.

His beard is also growing, showing the curling strands
below his chin
and around his chin
like the leaves of grass around the pink pagodas.

(Or like the Russian beards of young heroes
of Maxim Gorky’s novels
or those of Dostoyevsky
or those of Turgenev—
Those heroes
who would take on the world
in the hush of new excitement.
Almost in a huff.)

Only a little golden
in the slant of the rays of the sun;
his nose a little longish
but still a shapely thing.
How it sits sheepishly

under the askewed white of the scooping eyes!

       Arun Gaur

Kids, Playing, Ghaggar River Bed ,Exploring India, Arun Gaur’s Indian Landscape Images, Red Soil, Water,Toys, Carts, Trucks. Wheels, Red Water, River Channels, School Holidays

 

 

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