Father Returning Home Poem by Dilip Chitre
Father Returning Home
My father travels on the late evening train
Standing among silent commuters in the yellow light
Suburbs slide past his unseeing eyes
His shirt and pants are soggy and his black raincoat
Stained with mud and his bag stuffed with books
Is falling apart. His eyes dimmed by age
fade homeward through the humid monsoon night.
Now I can see him getting off the train
Like a word dropped from a long sentence.
He hurries across the length of the grey platform,
Crosses the railway line, enters the lane,
His chappals are sticky with mud, but he hurries onward.
Home again, I see him drinking weak tea,
Eating a stale chapati, reading a book.
He goes into the toilet to contemplate
Man's estrangement from a man-made world.
Coming out he trembles at the sink,
The cold water running over his brown hands,
A few droplets cling to the greying hairs on his wrists.
His sullen children have often refused to share
Jokes and secrets with him. He will now go to sleep
Listening to the static on the radio, dreaming
Of his ancestors and grandchildren, thinking
Of nomads entering a subcontinent through a narrow pass.
The poem is a true reflection on how an humble and lonesome old man finds himself in his own family. I quote a few lines: Man's estrangement from a man-made world... / His sullen children have often refused to share / Jokes and secrets with him.
Congrats on being poem of the day today. This poem certainly deserved to be one; it conveys so beautifully the feeling of a lonely, old man...
I liked the metaphor - I can see him getting off the train / Like a word dropped from a long sentence. / Wow...
loss of human values especially in indian culture too such things r happening so oss of culture that is SANSKAR
This poem has not been translated into any other language yet.
I would like to translate this poem
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4/24/2024 11:08:26 AM # 1.0.0.1119
Lovely narrative poem, well articulated and nicely penned. Thanks for sharing. Please read my poem MANDELA - THE IMMORTAL ICON.