Gangesh Vadakeyil

Gangesh Vadakeyil Poems

The Best Poem Of Gangesh Vadakeyil

Gone Before Time*

Circumscribed is her life by
the inescapable miasma of stifling destitution.
Her lips but seldom puckered into a smile,
as the vagaries of life frowned upon her darkly.

Lovely but not luscious,
she delights in wading through
a valley strewn with thorns and
hers is never a stroll through a grove of roses.

Her petals laden with perfume
as the proverbial fair flower of the same name.
All arms and legs, a bundle of bones
her frail, lissom frame merrily bears
all travails of her short terrestrial sojourn.

Never for a moment does she live for herself;
so much did others thrive through her,
and prey upon her- -she became others;
absolute self-denial in human form.

Hers is no misnomer as she excels
the life of her namesake to the core.
Slim as her stem is, the agonies
of her bosom knows but no bounds.

A taper, she burns to dispel the gloom that blights
the other saplings of her withered plain,
even as the vicissitudes of life consumed her.
Tender-aged as she is, she mothered many a sibling,
but smothered is she in turn by a twist of fate.

Self-oblivious and alien to all earthly comforts,
she is condemned to be a host, a victim of parasitoidism.
Her resolve never skin-deep, her renunciation no ornament,
she is creation all rare, but never meant to last.
A precious pearl pinched too soon from this sterile stretch.
Oh, what an evanescent splendour!

*Penned on revisiting A.J. Cronin's tale 'An Irish Rose'

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