Half Moon Poem by Pradip Chattopadhyay

‘You seemed to love her deeply’
I told my uncle.
It was raining dense
As I held him back,
The evening was not one to go out.
‘Deeply enough no doubt’
His voice echoed in gloom.
‘But she wasn’t your type,
she was flirtatious,
she had many like you’.
‘Still I loved her deep,
loved her mad,
loved her till and after
she broke my heart’.
I saw a glint in his eyes.
‘Forty years and she still hurts,
batters my self respect,
taunts my defeats’.
‘But you got yourself a steady partner,
not flirtatious, never leaving your side’.
‘True but she did the damage,
she left me to seek her in all women’.
Outside the rain stopped
And the sky begot a half moon.
He still loves her, I pondered,
Her fossil he bears
All these forty years,
But had he got her,
Could he carry the cross of love so far?