Category: Written in 1998

Waiting

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

There’s a girl, who lives near the sea,
She wanders there each day,
And her eyes, cast far ahead, speak
Much, much more than she’ll ever say.

The wind lifts her skirt, and riots
With her dark mane of hair;
While the glowering sun, covering her
In blinding gold, can’t cower her stare.

At times, I spy her work-torn hand
Lifting to catch a beam,
And pity the tears in her hope
As she likens it to her dream.

I watch, unobserved. And, I know,
She waits – and she waits in pain,
And, oft, I find myself praying
That her wait never ends in vain.

Each day of each changing season,
I am told, she stands there:
At the edge of the rolling sea,
Ensnared between hope and despair.

The waves tip high and break, break, break,
Near her unadorned feet,
While the sand surges from under
And with the sea hastens to meet,

Her eyes ne’ever waver in their stare,
And her back never bends,
She stands there, each day, from the time
It begins, to the time it ends.

I know not just whom she waits for,
Though this I know as true:
If that stare of hers breaks, in vain,
That spirited heart shall break, too.

And whom she waited for, in pain,
Shall know pain like never before!
And the heart that showed her disdain,
Shall suffer, suffer fore’ermore!

28th May.

Butterfly

Published on by Harpreet ChhachhiaLeave a comment

Red and blue and green and yellow,
Maroon, orange and white,
From the dullest shade possible
To that startlingly bright.

The flowers, sitting one on one,
Nodding, kissing, calling;
My wings, beating one on one,
Being kissed, often stalling.

I sip sweetness from coloured lips,
I am brighter than all,
My hues are such, that e’en Beauty
Is held in wondrous appal.

But I have so short a lifetime,
And the one I desire
Has to journey to garden,
All fenced within a barbed wire.

“Let him go, set him free,” the rose
Cries in its redness to me.
“If he returns,” adds the sweet pea,
“It was all meant to be.”

My wings lower to hold the sun,
As I sit, think and tear –
While Hope battles with Fear –
Wonder if God will be the one,
In loss, to keep me near.

“Ere he dies, let him go and live,”
The sun says in his life.
I think (again): “So, he lives not
When he stays in my sight.”

Four days I spend of my week’s life –
To think. Then, “Go,” I say,
And he’s gone – not a backward glance –
The wind eats up his way.

Three more days to all –
All that I have to do;
God is near and he says, “Choose: wait,
“Or start your life anew.”

Two more days and he is not back,
“Wait,” rose, sun, sweet pea cry,
But I, too, have my dream; I, too,
Have to live ere I die.

Others flap their glorious wings,
All around, about me,
And I know, I’ve no time to see,
If ‘twas all meant to be.

Red and blue and green and yellow,
Maroon, orange and white,
From the dullest shade possible
To that startlingly bright.

The flowers, sitting one on one,
Nodding, kissing, calling;
Then those petals fly in the wind,
Falling, falling, falling.

Kites.

Published on by Harpreet Chhachhia1 Comment

In skies of blue, I spy a speck of gliding brown;
It drops, then turns, the wind holding up its strong wings,
Then drops again to soar high, it moves up, then down,
But ne’er too low to seem a part of earth-bound things.

I gaze at the sight and wonder – that’s all I do –
Just wonder: what would it be like to be that kite?
Alone and high above ground, surrounded by blue,
To move through warm sunlight in an aimless flight?

No place to go, just soar and soar and soar higher,
A vast open with no limits, no goal, no end;
Not bound by chains, just a slave to my own desire,
Not ‘to be’ for a reason, or live to pretend.

4th January
edited 16th February 08