The 'Happy' Tusker Poem by Seema joglekar

The noon-orb had dropped his anchor close to the cliffs high,
The ground bellowed in the heat wave curdling under the turquoise sky,
Happy he roamed the hills, wanton in new shoots, till he saw her in a haze,
Something unnerved him he flared his nostrils at her unflustered gaze.

She drew him like sandalwood in a pine forest, or fire in the bramble bush,
Thrashing the trees around, in convulsions, to get her attention wasn’t enough,
She just had to cross his path to set his heart pounding and legs racing loud,
He stalked her, reticently, till her eyes drew him out of a crowd.

They exchanged glances. She went and climbed a hill.
Now everything offended him, he went to cool off in the wet rill,
The trees, hills, clouds, fields, rocks, mostly the lotus clutters,
In a splashing spree, uprooting, he formed a carpet over the waters.

It was sweet burden, watching her he was watching out for her,
Together they roamed the hills. Creepers bound them in their fruit-loaded lair,
Till in the star-sprinkled night, they glowed in the exquisite beauty of the lake,
Where the regal swans broke the surface, the mogra buds were up in a rake.

Her quiet ways disturbed him; she seemed to look right into his heart,
The Monsoons came, throwing up his defenses; he went into ‘masth’,
The forest bore the brunt of his passions, trampling everything in its spate,
He only had to get a whiff of her skin and there was more havoc to create.
In his torment, he had forgotten what it was to respond and meet her eye,
She worried if he would see sense and make his way back to her, sly,
Years were shrugged, till the angels guilty, squabbled over their shares,
To those who have pledged their hearts, what matter earthly cares,


“Happy ‘was his world and he had yet to learn to be Happy,
If he only gave up his grim self and came out of his frenzy,
She faltered-
But then, he only had to think of her again- - in that way,
To go berserk, trampling her heart in his wake, his ‘Happy’ way.
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