Loneliness Poem by GURDEV CHAUHAN

Loneliness is an aged mother
sitting at the curve of time,
an ill-timed rain,
a thick winter evening,
the inner pain swelling,
the rail line trembling
after the train has passed,
a hand raised in farewell
for you or maybe

It is going
upstairs and looking
at the starless sky above,
and the grassless ground below

It is to get tired,
a book lying upside down,
a letter on a much-used table, unopened,
you know which what it says

It is to look out from
your window at the girls
with ice-cream cones
on the street below.
It is closing of the window
and switching on the TV

It is the disturbed kaw kaw
of the crow flying low over the roofs,
a familiar sound of
someone coughing
across the street bend,
the sounds coming and going
further down the street

Loneliness is an evening
stiffened like driftwood.