Delightful Times Poem by Gazi Mohammad Arif

To go through this mode
Is not so agreed this day
As through the pages of sleepy books.

Green this place was
With sweeter bliss
Of UNKNOWN FRIEND to gift
Birds' songs, fig trees
Neither high enough for child to climb,
And what not?

Blessed time was then
Of stresslessness and sweet aimlessness
Or no bounded cares or the urban claims.

Delight lay where not? -
Everywhere and even in the wants for that.
Delight in watching chickabiddy
By climbing trees
Was perfect enough to relieve
A needy boy' woes
For not getting the only yearly dress.
And the songs of chickabidday
Would cause a new moon smile
Over the happy forehead of a needy boy
With cloudless sky of night.

Charm was too in carrying the begging bags,
Behind old grandma stuttering with sticks right and left.
And indeed charm was
In waiting for alms, in front of the doors
Until a kind heart comes forth.

In the mornings boys would
Go to collect palms fallen under trees
Gifted by the friendly nights.
And morning breeze would hum
With scent of Hijal flowers.

School classes would charm
By giving chance to play with mates
In front of the sleeping teachers on the teaching tables.

Those afternoons were good indeed
In playing with mates in the uncorned field.

Afternoons charmed a lot
As the boys sat to study
In the earthen yards with books
On jute or plastic mats
Until the twilight fetches darkness to the day.

So the dark or semi-dark nights
Could be the common time for playing hide seek
Behind the house walls,
Trees and hay piles.
Unlike the weary lights of studious boys.
Starry nights would shine
With golden bliss,
To have naughty kiss
From angel like kids.

Those friend like times -
Morning, Noon, Afternoon, Twilight
And starry nights
Today seem to be actually dead.