Alarm
The bird song,
Notes tiny,
Rhythmic,
Repeated,
Form an uninterrupted
Symphony,
Unheard
In the high-rises,
With shut-windows,
And
Humming A/c
In the curtained dark sepulchers
Where naked greed and surfeit sleep
Entwined and snoring,
Oblivious to the
Natural alarm,
That breaks out daily
Before five,
And echoes
On still mornings,
In the lonely urban spaces
In autumnal Madrid
Or,
Mumbai;
The song beautiful
Carried by the gentle wind,
Wakes up
The old man
Still grieving dead wife,
While others have forgotten
Even the living,
The notes and their sweet
Harmony
A balm to his soul crying;
The song also wakes up,
The baby-faced
Sun
Floating
In golden tinged sky;
The old man is re-assured
By them that he has
Survived another long night
Of insomnia and grief,
That won’t desert him—
As the others have done
Leaving him,
To drown daily
In the frothy sea
Of powerful memories,
Bridging present with past,
While the whistle of a
Passing train far-off,
Interrupts his reverie,
And marks the start
Of another empty day
And gaping life.
If poems were jewels ,then work such as this, ” Alarm ” would be guarded by Beefeaters at the Tower of London.
Your comments, Louis, are excellent meta-poetry. Thanks for continual appreciation like the first constant rains falling on the parched earth…a soul, still not atrophied.