LIFE...LIFELESS

LIFE...LIFELESS By Usha Diptivilasa

10th February 2008

I lay in my bed, asleep
Awake...?
Thoughts drifting
From things mundane to
‘How it should be’
Utopian.

A sudden loud flutter of wings
Outside the window.
The hoarse caw of the city crow
The noisy tweeting of the troubled sparrow
The rustle of dry twigs
The cold morning zephyr nomadic
Through a narrow crack.

The din growing noisier
Drew me out of my slumber,
Out of my bed.
In the garden lay a baby pigeon
Out of its bed
Sticks and straw strewn all around
Like a floral wreath
Blood-speckled wings
A deep cut in its neck
Lifeless.


(I woke up one Sunday morning, listening to the harsh sound of a crow cawing and the pigeon’s flutter of wings on the AC outside my bedroom window. A sudden memory flashed through my mind of a pigeon lying dead in my garden that I had seen quite some time before. I quickly took out paper and pencil, not wanting my thoughts to get dissipated in the routine of day to day life and hastily scribbled the lines that came to my head. Not wanting anyone to disturb me, my daughter, 11 year old, demanding her morning hug and her pre-birthday caress, got a little reprimand instead. That was the time when this poem took birth.)